QassJRXi^^ 
Book — 



/ 



THE POPE; 

CONSIDERED IN 

HIS RELATIONS WITH THE CHURCH, 

4rc. Sec. 



THE POPE; 



CONSIDERED IN 

HIS RELATIONS WITH THE CHURCH, 
TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTIES, SEPARATED CHURCHES, 

AND 

THE CAUSE OF CIVILIZATION. 

BY 

COUNT JOSEPH DE MAISTRE. 

TRANSLATED BY THE 

REV. AENEAS M C D. DAWSON. 



\ 

'EIS K0IPAN02 ESTQ. 
Unus princeps esto. 

Iliad ii. 204. 



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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



In publishing, for the first time in the English lan- 
guage, a work justly considered a masterpiece, a few intro- 
ductory observations need be made. It may, however, be 
remarked, that the attempt to make it generally known to 
the Catholics of these countries cannot be considered in- 
appropriate, particularly at a time when the position of the 
Papal Chair, as regards the affairs of Europe, no less than 
its own internal state, is in so many respects the same as a 
the period (1816-17) when the treatise of De Maistre first 
emanated from the indefatigable pen of its illustrious 
author. Now, as then, days of calamity and humiliation 
have passed by, and the Supreme Pastor, to the great joy c 
all faithful Christians, reascends his throne amidst the ac- 
clamations of his people. What influence this event is calcu- 
lated to exercise, not only as regards the state of that " king- 
dom which is not of this world/' but likewise on human 
affairs generally, and the civilization and improvement of 
mankind, all thinking men must be anxious more and more 
to understand. In the work of our author they will fin* 
much to aid them in arriving at sound conclusions. 

a Vid. Reeves's History of the Christian Church, Preliminary 

Discourse. 



vi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

The passages quoted in support of the spiritual supre- 
macy of the Holy See, from the ritual hooks of the Greek 
and the Russo- Greek Churches, are themselves a treasure 
of incalculable price. They are by no means generally 
known in this country, however familiar they may now be 
to our more learned controvertists. When Count de 
Maistre wrote, no reference had yet been made to these 

-emarkable books. " Cumbrous from their form and 
weight, written in Sclavonic, a language which, although 
very rich and very beautiful, is as strange as Sanscrit to 
our eyes and ears, printed in repulsive characters, buried 
in the churches, and handled only by men totally unknown 
to the world, it is easily understood why this mine has not 
been hitherto explored/' Every facility for exploring it 
was enjoyed by the distinguished author, during his resi- 
dence in Russia as ambassador from the court of Turin. 

If the following pages, instead of advocating truths in 
which all men and all nations are alike concerned, were 

ddressed only to the people of France, they would not on 
chat account be without interest in our eyes. From the 

ige of Pepin, and far beyond that memorable epoch, the 

dstory of the French people has been intimately connected 
not only with that of St. Peter's Chair and the Papal 
States, but also with that of every branch of the Christian 
Church and every state of Christendom. Of late years, 
more particularly towards the close of the eighteenth and 

he earlier part of the nineteenth century, they appear to 
have been the chosen instrument of Divine Providence in 



translator's preface. vii 

rendering apparent the great truth our author so learnedly 
inculcates. The giant power that arose out of the chaos 
of the first revolution, controlling for a time its fury 
and directing its energies, no sooner aimed his blows at 
that institution which alone is destined to endure " all 
days," than his wild, ambitious, and, till that time, success- 
ful career, hastened rapidly to its close. He essays to quash 
the authority of the Apostolic Chair, his own imperial seat 
crumbles beneath him, and he is cast, " like a hissing fire- 
brand, in the deep/' 

The successor of St. Peter, meanwhile, recovering from 
the shock of accumulated evils, which, humanly speaking, 
appeared to have struck him down for ever, resumes his 
place and power. All the sovereignties of Europe, not ex- 
cepting Britain's threefold crown, concur in forwarding an 
event so conducive to the real interests of each of them, 
and so highly calculated to promote the cause of order, 
freedom, and civilization throughout the world. 

A few years more, and the social fabric is again shaken 
to its inmost depths. Thrones fall, governments are over- 
thrown, empires are dismembered. The revolutionary tem- 
pest sweeps over Europe, bearing down for a time in its 
resistless course institutions which for centuries had been 
deemed immoveable. The temporal throne — the patrimony 
of the Galilean fisherman — is favoured with no exception. 
It becomes the spoil of the enemies of mankind and of 
human liberty. Not so the sacred Chair itself. Against 
it the powers of hell, even, shall not prevail. It survives 

a 2 



vm translator's preface. 

the wreck of all its material glories ; without diminution or 
symptom of decay, it only shines more brightly from con- 
trast with the ruins which surround it. Once more is the 
prophecy, uttered so many ages ago, fulfilled in its regard : 
" Kings become its nursing fathers, and queens its nurses/'' 
(Is. xlix. 23.) In adversity it gathers strength, and ex- 
tends the sphere of its real dominion. Opportunity having 
been afforded it of making manifest to the world that to it 
belongs, as its inalienable inheritance, that inward beauty, 
the all-attractive and imperishable ornament of the imma- 
culate spouse of the heavenly bridegroom, and that it holds 
of right, and independently of all temporal accidents, the 
chief government on earth of that kingdom of which tlwre 
shall be no end* it receives anew the external splendour of 
which it had been violently but only momentarily stripped. 
Once more does this Divine light invest itself with the 
material form of a pillar of flame, to guide as of old the 
people of God through the night of error which surrounds 
them. 

Vain, then, have proved the united efforts, the concen- 
trated energies of all the enemies of order, government, 
liberty, and religion, that it was possible Europe should 
produce, in the days of one generation, and the Apostolic 
throne remains. It remains, not as some decayed and in- 
explicable object of antiquarian research, but in more, far 
more than " the undiminished vigour" of its earlier days. 
Restitution has been nobly made, and it appears again 
* Cujus regni non erit finis. — Nicene Creed. 



translator's preface. 



ix 



arrayed in all the strength and beauty of its outward cir- 
cumstance. In this signal act of justice, which, leaving its 
intrinsic merits out of view, was imperatively demanded by 
the necessities of our age, all the nations of the civilized 
world have concurred ; but none more cordially, or at 
greater cost to themselves, than that illustrious people who 
justly claim to be, and have shown themselves so well, the 
worthy descendants of Pepin and of Charlemagne. Who 
knows how far the words of the great man, so much of 
whose vast store of knowledge, profound thoughts, and 
immense experience is embodied in the following work, 
may have tended to rouse up within them the chivalric 
spirit of their ancestors, and the still brighter flame of 
Christian faith and devotedness to the See of Peter ? But 
should any reference to France, which, indeed, is only 
prominent in the author's Preliminary Discourse, prove 
distasteful to some readers, it will be lost sight of in the 
general interest of the subjects discussed. 

That all hostility is to be disarmed by this or any 
other exposition and defence of all or a portion of the 
doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church, none can 
be so ignorant of human nature as to imagine ; but the 
work of our author will not have fallen short of its aim, 
if, by its perusal, so much as one illiberal prejudice is 
shaken — one erroneous notion dispelled. There may not 
be wanting those in whom it will only excite astonish- 
ment. They who have hitherto seen in the Holy See, 
and in the paternal exercise of the most paternal autho- 



X 



TRANSLATOR'S 1'REFACE. 



rity, nothing better than a power essentially and irreme- 
diably evil, — a power that cramps and crushes the human 
intellect — that extinguishes every generous thought, and 
even the desire of liberty — will naturally enough be as- 
tonished to find in so zealous an advocate of every Papal 
privilege as the learned and amiable De Maistre, a sin- 
cere admirer of the British constitution, and of that real 
freedom of which Christianity is the strongest prop and 
surest guarantee ; — freedom, which it is not difficult to 
distinguish from the unbridled liberty of pseudo-philoso- 
phers, anarchists, terrorists, and such as are enemies of 
all authority. 

In a country where the Catholic Church and all its in- 
stitutions have been so long systematically calumniated, 
it must, to some at least, appear still more wonderful 
that the Popes, whom men have been taught to consider 
as the very incarnation of despotism and tyranny, have 
ever fearlessly advocated and powerfully supported the 
cause of true civil liberty ; a whilst, at the same time, 
they have always shown themselves — and with more suc- 
cess than any other influence in the world — the uncom- 
promising enemies of all spurious imitations of this great 
source of human happiness. 

* Vid. in the work remarks on the liberty of Italy, book ii. 
ch. viii. &c. ; book iii. ch. ii. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE, 



SECTION I. 

It may appear surprising that a man of the world 
should assume the right to treat of questions, which, 
until our time, have seemed to belong exclusively to the 
zeal and science of the sacerdotal order. I trust, never- 
theless, that, after having weighed the reasons that have 
determined me to enter the lists in this honourable cause, 
every candid and well-disposed reader will approve them in 
his conscience, and absolve me from all baseness of usurpa- 
tion. 

In the first place, as our order was during last century 
egregiously criminal in regard to religion, I do not see why 
the same order should not present ecclesiastical writers 
with some faithful allies, who shall array themselves 
around the altar to keep at a distance from it every 
rash assailant, without embarrassing the Levites. 

I doubt even whether, in these times, such an alliance 
has not become necessary. A thousand causes have weak- 
ened the sacerdotal order. The Revolution has plundered, 
exiled, massacred the priesthood ; it has practised every 
species of cruelty against the natural defenders of the 
maxims which it held in abhorrence. The ancient war- 



xii 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



riors of the sacred camp have departed to their rest ; 
young recruits are indeed coming forward to fill their 
places, hut they are still necessarily few in number, the 
enemy having, by anticipation, cut off their supplies with 
the most fatal ability. Who knows, besides, if Eliseus, 
before taking wing for his heavenly country, cast his 
mantle on the earth, and if the holy garment may have 
been immediately gathered up ? It is, no doubt, probable, 
that as no human motive could have influenced the deter- 
mination of the young heroes who have entered their names 
among the new levies, everything may be expected of their 
noble resolution. And yet how much time must they not 
spend in acquiring all the knowledge requisite for the 
combat which awaits them ? And when they shall have 
become masters of the necessary learning, will they have 
sufficient leisure to employ it? The most indispensable 
polemics scarcely belong to any other times than those of 
profound peace, when labours can be freely distributed 
according to strength and talents. Huet would not have 
written his " Demonstration Evangelique " whilst exer- 
cising his episcopal functions ; and if Bergier had been 
condemned by circumstances to bear during his whole 
lifetime, in a country parish, " the burthen of the day and 
of the heat," he would not have been able to present 
religion with that multitude of works which have entitled 
him to rank among the most excellent apologists. 

In such laborious occupations, holy, indeed, but over- 
whelming, are now more or less engaged the clergy of all 
Europe, but more particularly those of France, who were 
more directly and more violently struck by the revolu- 
tionary tempest. As regards them, all the flowers of 
the sacred ministry are withered ; the thorns alone re- 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



Xlll 



main. As regards them, the Church is beginning anew, 
and by the very nature of things, confessors and martyrs 
must precede doctors. It is not easy to foresee the moment 
when, restored to its former tranquillity, and sufficiently 
numerous to bring into full operation all the resources of 
its immense ministry, it may yet astonish us by its science, 
as well as by the sanctity of its morals, the activity of its 
zeal, and the prodigious success of its apostolic labours. 

I see no reason why, during this interval, which in other 
respects will not be lost to religion, men of the world, who 
from inclination have applied to serious studies, should not 
number themselves among the defenders of the most holy 
of causes. Even although they should only fill up the 
broken ranks of the army of the Lord, they could not be 
justly denied at least the merit of those courageous women 
who have been known sometimes to mount the ramparts of 
a besieged town, in order, if they could do no more, to 
strike terror into the enemy. 

All science, besides, always owes, but especially at a 
period like the present, a kind of tithe to him from whom 
it proceeds, for he is the God of sciences, and for him are 
all thoughts prepared* We are approaching the greatest 
of all religious epochs, in which every man is bound, if it 
be in his power, to bring a stone for the august edifice, the 
plans of which are obviously fixed. None ought to be 
deterred by mediocrity of talents ; by this, at least, I have 
not been dismayed. The poor man, who, in his narrow 
garden, sows only mint, anise, and cummin, b may confi- 
dently present the first leaf to Heaven, as sure of being 

a Deus scientiarum Dominus est, et ipsi prseparantur cogi- 
tationes. — 1 Reg. ii. 3. 
b Matt, xxiii. 23. 



xiv PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 

accepted as the opulent owner of vast fields, who pours in 
abundance into the temple of God, the strength of bread 
and the blood of the vine* 

Another consideration has tended in no small degree to 
encourage me. The priest who defends religion does his 
duty, no doubt, and deserves our highest esteem ; but, in 
the eyes of a multitude of frivolous or preoccupied persons, 
he appears to defend his own cause ; and although his good 
faith be equal to our own, every observer may have often 
perceived that the wicked and unbelieving mistrust less 
the man of the world, and allow themselves to be ap- 
proached by him, not unfrequently, without the least 
repugnance. Now, all who have attentively examined 
this wild and sullen bird, know also that it is incom- 
parably more difficult to approach than to seize him. 

May I be permitted to say, moreover, if the man who 
has employed his attention, all his lifetime, on an impor- 
tant subject, who has devoted to that subject every moment 
he could dispose of, and directed towards it all his know- 
ledge ; if such a man, I say, experiences within himself a 
certain indefinable power which makes him feel it neces- 
sary to communicate his ideas, he ought, no doubt, to be 
on his guard against the illusions of self-love ; but, never- 
theless, he is, perhaps, in some degree, entitled to believe 
that this kind of inspiration is really something, espe- 
cially if it is not wholly without the approbation of other 
men. 

It is now a long time since / considered France* and, 
if I am not completely blinded by the honourable ambition 

a Robur panis . . . sanguinem uvae. — Ps. civ. 16 ; Isaias iii. 1. 
b Considerations sur la France, in 8vo. Bale, Geneve, Paris, 
1795, 1796 ; Lyon, 1830. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



XV 



of pleasing that country, my work, it appears to me, has 
not been disagreeable to it. Since, in the midst of its 
most terrible calamities, it listened with kindness to the 
voice of a friend who belonged to it by religion, by lan- 
guage, and by those hopes of a higher order which always 
remain, why should it not agree still to favour me with an 
attentive hearing, now that it has made so great a step 
towards happiness, and that it has so far recovered tran- 
quillity as to be able to examine itself and judge itself 
wisely ? 

Circumstances have, indeed, much changed since the 
year 1796. At that time all honest men were at liberty 
to attack the brigands at their own risk and peril. Now 
that all the powers of Europe are restored, error having 
divers points of contact with politics, there might happen 
to the writer who should not be constantly on his guard, 
the same misfortune which befel Diomedes under the walls 
of Troy, — that of wounding a divinity, whilst pursuing an 
enemy. 

Happily, there is nothing so evident for conscience as 
conscience itself. If I were not conscious of being pene- 
trated with universal benevolence, absolutely free from all 
spirit of contention, and from all polemical anger, even 
in regard to those men whose systems are most revolting 
to me, God is my witness, I would throw down the pen ; 
and I venture to hope that every sincere man who reads 
me will have no doubt of my intentions. But this con- 
sciousness excludes neither the solemn profession of my 
belief, nor the distinct and dignified expression of faith, 
nor the cry of alarm in presence of a known or disguised 
enemy, nor that honest proselytism, in fine, which proceeds 
from persuasion. 



xvi 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



After a declaration, the sincerity of which will, I trust, 
be fully justified by every page of my work, I would not 
experience the least disquietude, even although I should be 
in direct opposition with other creeds. I know what is 
due to nations and to those by whom they are governed, 
but I do not think I derogate from this sentiment by 
telling them the truth with all due consideration. The 
first lines of my book make known its object ; he who 
might dread being shocked by it is earnestly entreated 
not to read it. To me it is demonstrated, and I would 
most willingly prove the same to other men, that without 
the Sovereign Pontiff" there is no real Christianity, and 
that no sincere Christian man, separated from him, will 
sign upon his honour {provided he be well informed) a 
clearly defined profession of faith. 

All the nations that have withdrawn from the authority 
of the Holy Father, no doubt, if taken in the aggregate, 
possess the right (the learned possess it not) to denounce 
me as paradoxical, but none are entitled to charge me with 
insulting them. Every writer who restricts himself to the 
sphere of a severe logic is wanting to nobody. The only 
honourable revenge that can be taken on him is, to reason 
against him, and better than he. 

SECTION II. 

Although in the whole course of my work I have con- 
fined myself as much as possible to general ideas, it will, 
nevertheless, be easily perceived that I have given particu- 
lar attention to France. Until that country understand 
how deeply it is in error, there is no safety for it ; but if it 
be yet blind in this respect, Europe is still more so, perhaps, 
in regard to what it has to expect from France. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



xvii 



There are privileged nations that have a mission in this 
world. In a former work I endeavoured to explain that 
of France, which appears to me as visible as the sun. 
There is in the natural government, and in the national 
ideas of the French people, a certain theocratic and reli- 
gious element, which is never lost sight of. The French- 
man stands in need of religion more than any other man. 
If he wants it, he is not only weakened, but mutilated. 
Consider his history. To the government of the Druids, 
which was all-powerful, succeeded that of the bishops, who 
were constantly, but much more in ancient times than in 
our days, the counsellors of the king in all his counsels. 
The bishops, and Gibbon remarks it, made the kingdom of 
France. 3, There is nothing more true. The bishops con- 
structed this monarchy as bees construct a hive. The 
councils of the Church in the first ages of the monarchy 
were really national councils. The Christian Druids, if I 
may use the expression, performed in them the principal 
part. The forms had changed, but we always find the 
same nation. The Teutonic blood, sufficiently mingled 
with it to give a name to France, disappeared almost en- 
tirely at the battle of Fontenai, and left only the Gauls. 
We have the proof of this in the language — for when a 
people is one, their language is one ; b and if it be mixed in 

b Gibbon, Hist, of the Decline and Fall, &c. vol. vii. ch. xxxviii. 
Paris, Maradan, 1812, in 8vo. 

b Hence, the more we penetrate into antiquity, the more radical, 
and consequently the more regular, do we find languages. In 
starting from the word maison, for instance, as the root, the 
Greek would have said maisonniste, maisonnier, maisonneur, mai- 
sonnerie, maisonner, emmaisoner, demaisonner, &c. The French, 
on the other hand, are obliged to say, maison, domestique, econome, 



xviii 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



any way, but particularly by conquest, each constituent 
nation produce portion of tbe national tongue, the 
syntax, and what is called the genius of the language, be- 
longing always to the predominating people ; and the num- 
ber of words contributed by each nation is always exactly 
in proportion to the amount of blood furnished respectively 
by the divers nations composing the whole and joined to- 
gether in national unity. Now, the Teutonic element is 
scarcely perceptible in the French language ; considered in 
the aggregate, the French are Celtic and Roman. There 
is nothing so great in the world. Cicero said, " Let us 
natter ourselves as we will, we shall never surpass either 
the Gauls in valour, or the Spaniards in number, or the 
Greeks in talents, &c. ; but by religion and the fear of the 
gods, we excel all the nations of the world/' 

This Roman element, naturalized in Gaul, admirably 
agreed with Druidism, which Christianity stripped of its 
errors and of its ferocity, whilst it allowed to remain a 
certain root, which was good ; and from all these elements 
there resulted an extraordinary nation, destined to act an 
astonishing part among the other nations, and especially 
to hold for the second time the first place in the religious 
system of Europe. 

Christianity obtained among the French people at an 
early period, and with a facility which could only be the 
result of a particular affinity. The Gallican Church scarcely 

casanier, magon, hdtir, habiter, demolir, &c. We here discover the 
dust of divers nations, commingled, and amalgamated by the 
hand of time. I do not believe that there can be a language 
which does not possess some element of those which have pre- 
ceded it ; but there are, for the most part, great constituent 
masses, which may, as it were, be touched. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



xix 



had an infancy; it was, so to speak, at its birth, the first 
of national churches, and the strongest support of 
unity. 

The French people enjoyed the singular honour, which 
they have by no means sufficiently appreciated, of consti- 
tuting (humanly speaking) the Catholic Church in the 
world, by raising its august chief to the rank indispensably 
due to his Divine functions, and without which he would 
only have been the miserable sport of Christian sultans and 
Mussulman autocrats. 

Charlemagne, the modern Trismegistus, erected, or caused 
to be recognized, the pontifical throne, which was destined 
to ennoble and consolidate all other thrones. As there has 
not been a greater institution in the universe, there is un- 
doubtedly none in which theShand of Providence has more 
obviously shown itself; but ifis highly honourable to have 
been selected by Divine Providence as the enlightened in- 
strument in accomplishing a worK so truly wonderful and 
without example. 

When, in the middle ages, we repaired to Asia, and en- 
deavoured, sword in hand, to break on its own territory 
that formidable Crescent which threatened all the liberties 
of Europe, the French were likewise at the head of this 
immortal enterprise. A private individual, who bequeathed 
to posterity only his baptismal name, adorned with the 
modest surname of Hermit, with no other aid than his 
faith and indomitable will, moved Europe, terrified Asia, 
destroyed the feudal system, ennobled the serfs, removed 
from under its bushel the torch of science, and completely 
changed the European world. 

Bernard seconded the Hermit — Bernard, the miracle of 
his age, and, like Peter, a Frenchman, a man of the world 



XX 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



and mortified cenobite, orator, wit, statesman, solitary, who 
had more external occupations than most men will ever 
have ; consulted by the whole world, intrusted with an in- 
finite number of important negotiations, pacifying states, 
called to the councils of the Church, advising kings, in- 
structing bishops, reprimanding Popes, governing an entire 
order, the preacher and oracle of his time? 

We are constantly told that none of these celebrated 
enterprises succeeded. Undoubtedly no single crusade suc- 
ceeded ; this even children know ; but all the crusades suc- 
ceeded ; and this men even will not see. 

The French name made so great an impression in the 
East, that it has there remained synonymous, as it were, 
with that of European ; and the greatest poet of Italy, 
writing in the sixteenth century, hesitates not to employ 
the same expression. 5 

The French sceptre was illustrious both at Jerusalem 
and Constantinople. What great things was there not 
reason to expect of it ? It would have aggrandized Europe, 
vanquished Islamism, and extinguished schism ; unfortu- 
nately, however, it was not able to keep its ground. 

Magnis tamen excidit ausis. 

A considerable portion of the literary glory of the French, 
particularly in the great century, belongs to the clergy. 
Science being generally contrary to the propagation of 
families and of names, c there is nothing more conformable 

a Bourdaloue, Semi, sur la Fuite du Monde, premiere partie. 
b H Popol Franco (the Crusaders, the army of Godefrey). — 
Tasso. 

c Hence arises, no doubt, the ancient prejudice as to the in- 
compatibility of science with nobility, — a prejudice founded, like 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



xxi 



to order than a hidden direction of science towards the 
sacerdotal and consequently the celibatory state. 

No nation has possessed a greater number of ecclesiasti- 
cal establishments than the French, and no sovereignty has 
employed more advantageously for itself a greater number 
of priests than the court of France. Ministers, ambassa- 
dors, negotiators, teachers, &c, are found in every depart- 
ment of the public service. From Suger to Fleury, France 
has only had credit by them. It is regretted that the 
ablest and most illustrious of them all was sometimes inex- 
orably severe ; but he never passed the bounds of severity ; 
and I am inclined to believe, that under the ministry of 
this great man the punishment of the Templars, and other 
events of a like nature, would not have been possible. 

The highest nobility of France held it an honour to 
possess the great dignities of the Church. What was there 
in Europe superior to that Gallican Church, which pos- 
sessed all that pleases God and captivates men — virtue, 
learning, nobility, and opulence ? 

Do we desire a representation of ideal grandeur ? Let us 
imagine, if we can, anything that surpasses Fenelon. We 
shall not succeed. 

Charlemagne in his will bequeathed to his sons the 
guardianship of the Roman Church. This legacy, repu- 
diated by the German emperors, had passed as a kind of 
feofment of trust to the crown of France. The Catholic 
Church might have been represented by an ellipsis : in one 
of the focuses was St. Peter, and in the other Charlemagne. 

all other prejudices, on some hidden cause. No learned man of 
the first class has been able to found a house. Already, even the 
names of the sixteenth century that were celebrated in literature 
and science no longer exist. 

b 



XXII 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



The Gallican Church, with its power, its doctrine, its dig- 
nity, its language, its proselytism, appeared sometimes to 
bring the two centres into contact, and confound them in 
the most magnificent unity. 

But, human weakness! deplorable blindness ! de- 
testable prejudices, which I shall have occasion to speak 
of more at length in the course of this work, had wholly 
perverted this admirable order, this sublime relation be- 
tween the two powers. By means of sophistry and crimi- 
nal manoeuvres, one of the brightest prerogatives of the 
most Christian king, that of presiding (humanly) over 
the religious system, and of being the hereditary protector 
of Catholic unity, was too successfully concealed from him. 
Constantine, of old, gloried in the title of temporal bishop. 
That of temporal Sovereign Pontiff flattered not the ambi- 
tion of a successor of Charlemagne, and this post offered by 
Providence was vacant ! Ah ! if the kings of France had 
been inclined to lend the strength of their arm to truth, 
what would they not have accomplished ? But what can a 
king do when the lights of his people are extinguished ? 
It must even be said, to the immortal glory of an august 
house, the royal spirit with which it is animated has fre- 
quently and most happily been more learned than the 
academies, and more just than the tribunals. 

Overthrown at last by a preternatural tempest, we have 
seen this mission, so precious for Europe, restored through 
a miracle, which promises other miracles, and which ought 
to inspire all Frenchmen with religious courage ; but the 
height of misfortune for them would be to believe that the 
revolution is at an end, and that the column is replaced, 
because it has been raised up anew. It must be believed, 
on the contrary, that the revolutionary spirit is, beyond 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



XX111 



comparison, more powerful and more dangerous than it was 
a few years back. The mighty usurper made use of it only 
for himself ; he knew how to compress it in his iron hand, 
and reduce it to be only a monopoly for the benefit of his 
crown. ' But since justice and peace have embraced, the 
genius of evil has ceased to fear ; and, instead of agitating 
at one point, it has reproduced a general ebullition over an 
immense surface. 

May I be permitted to repeat that the French revolu- 
tion is not like to anything that was ever witnessed in the 
world in bygone times. It is essentially satanical? Never 
will it be wholly extinguished except by the contrary prin- 
ciple, and never will the French people resume their place 
until they have acknowledged this truth. The priesthood 
ought to be the principal object of the sovereign's care. If 
I had under my eyes the table of ordinations, I might 
predict great events. The French nobility are now pre- 
sented with an opportunity of offering to the state a sacri- 
fice worthy of them. Let them, therefore, give their sons 
\o the altar, as in days of old. In these times it will 
not be said that they covet only the treasures of the sanc- 
tuary. The Church, in earlier times, conferred on them 
riches and honour ; let them now make a return for her 
gifts, by bestowing upon her all they have yet in their 
power — the influence of their illustrious names, which will 
maintain the ancient opinion, and determine a multitude 
of men to follow standards borne by such worthy hands : 
time will do the rest. In thus sustaining the priesthood, 
the French nobility will pay an immense debt they have 
contracted towards France, and also perhaps as regards all 

a Considerations sur la France, ch. x. sect. 3. 
b 2 



xxiv 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



Europe. The greatest mark of; respect and of profound 
esteem that can be shown them, is to remind them that 
the French revolution — which they would, no doubt, have 
redeemed with the last drop of their blood — was, never- 
theless, in a great measure their own work. So long as 
a pure aristocracy (in other words, an aristocracy profess- 
ing, with enthusiasm, national dogmas) surrounds the 
throne, it is immoveable, even although it should happen 
to be filled by weakness or error ; but if the baronage 
becomes apostate, there is no longer any safety for the 
throne, even if it were occupied by a St. Louis or a 
Charlemagne ; and this is more true as regards France 
than any other country. By their monstrous alliance with 
the bad principle during last century, the French nobility 
ruined everything. It is now their duty to repair all the 
evil they occasioned. Their destiny is certain, provided 
they be well persuaded of the natural, essential, necessary 
French alliance of the priesthood and the nobility. 

At the most disastrous period of the revolution, it was 
said : " This is for the nobility only a well-deserved 
eclipse. It will resume its place. It will escape at last, 
by receiving with a good grace children that had no claim 
to belong to it." 

Des enfants qu'en son sein elle n'a point portes. a 

What was said twenty years ago is now in course of 
being verified. If the French nobility are under the neces- 
sity of recruiting, it lies with them to prevent their renewal 
from being anywise humbling to the ancient houses. When 
once they shall have understood why this renewal had 



a Considerations sur la France, ch. x. sect. 3. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



XXV 



become necessary, it can no longer be offensive to them or 
hurtful ; but this remark must only be made, as it were, 
by the way, and without entering into learned details. 

I return to my principal subject, by observing that the 
anti-religious fury of last century against all Christian 
truths and institutions, was directed against the Holy See. 
The couspirators were sufficiently aware — they knew, unfor- 
tunately, much better than the multitude of well-inten- 
tioned men, that Christianity is wholly based upon the 
Sovereign Pontiff. Against this foundation, therefore, 
they directed all their efforts. If they had proposed to the 
Catholic cabinets measures directly anti- christian, fear or 
shame (in the absence of more noble motives) would have 
sufficed to repel them ; for all the princes, therefore, they 
laid the most subtle snares. 

" The wisest of kings, alas ! they contrived to lead astray." 

They represented to them the Holy See as the natural 
enemy of all thrones ; they environed it with calumnies, 
made it be mistrusted in every way, and endeavoured to 
place it in opposition to the welfare of states. In short, 
they forgot nothing that was calculated to connect the idea 
of dignity with that of independence. By means of usurpa- 
tion, violence, chicanery, and encroachments of every 
kind, they rendered the policy of Rome jealous and slow, 
and then accused it of deficiencies, which it owed entirely 
to themselves. In a word, they succeeded to a degree that 
causes the greatest alarm. The evil is such, that the con- 
sideration of certain Catholic countries may have sometimes 
scandalized parties that were strangers to truth, and 
averted them from it. Nevertheless, without the Sovereign 
Pontiff the whole edifice of Christianity is undermined, 



XXVi PRELIMINARY 'DISCOURSE, 

and only requires, in order to be utterly demolished, the 
development of certain circumstances, which will be shown 
in their true light. 

Meanwhile, facts are not silent. Were Protestants ever 
known to amuse themselves writing books against the Greek, 
Nestorian, or Syriac churches, which profess dogmas that 
Protestantism abhors ? They do no such thing. On the 
contrary, they protect those churches, they compliment 
them, and show themselves ready to unite with them, 
always holding as a true ally every enemy of the Holy 
See. a 

The infidel, on the other hand, laughs at all dissenters, 
and makes use of them all, quite sure that all, more or 
less, and each one of them in his way, will forward his great 
work, the destruction of Christianity. 

Protestantism, philosophism, and a thousand other sects, 
more or less perverse or extravagant, having prodigiously 
diminished truths among men, b it is impossible mankind 
should continue long in the state they are in at present. 
They are in agitation and labour, they are ashamed of 
themselves, and are seeking, with an indescribable convul- 
sive energy, to make head against the torrent of errors, 
after having abandoned themselves to them with the sys- 
tematic blindness of pride. It has appeared to me useful, at 
this memorable time, to set forth in all its fulness a theory 
no less vast than it is important, and to disencumber it of 
the obscurities with which men have obstinately persisted 

a See the Asiatic Researches of Dr. Claudius Buchanan, in 
which he proposes to the Anglican Church to ally itself in India 
with the Syriac, because it rejects the supremacy of the Pope. In 
8vo. London, 1812, p. 283 to 287. 

b Diminutse sunt veritates a filiis hominum. — Ps. xi. 2. 



PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. 



XXVL1 



in enveloping it for so long a time. Without presuming 
too much on my endeavours, I trust, however, that they 
will not be altogether fruitless. A good book is not one 
which persuades everybody ; if so, there would be no good 
book. It is one which completely satisfies a certain class 
of readers, to whom it is more particularly addressed, and 
which, moreover, leaves no doubt in any mind of the per- 
fectly honest purpose of the author, and the indefatigable 
toil he has subjected himself to, in order to become master 
of his subject, and even to find for it, if possible, some new 
points of view. I flatter myself, in all simplicity, that in 
this respect, every equitable reader will decide that I am 
not out of order. I am convinced that it was never more 
necessary to surround with every ray of evidence a truth 
of the first class, and I also believe that truth stands in 
need of France. I am not without hope, therefore, that 
France will read me once more with kindness ; and I would 
consider myself fortunate, above all, if its great personages 
of every order, reflecting on what I expect of them, should 
make it a point of conscience to refute me. 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK FIRST. 

OP THE POPE IN HIS RELATIONS WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 

CHAPTER I. 

Infallibility ... ... ... ... ... Page 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Councils ... ... ... ... ... 9 

CHAPTER III. 
Definition and authority of Councils 11 

CHAPTER IV. 
Analogies derived from temporal power 17 

CHAPTER V. 

Digression on what is termed the youth of nations 21 

CHAPTER VI. 

Supremacy of the Sovereign Pontiff recognized in every age. 
Catholic testimonies of the Churches of the West and of 
the East ... ... ... ... ... ... 24 

CHAPTER VII. 
Striking testimonies of the Gallican Church 34 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Jansenist evidence. Text from Pascal, and reflections on the 
weight of -certain authorities . ... 36 



XXX CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Protestant evidences .. 39 

CHAPTER X. 

Testimonies of the Russian Church, and through it of the 
Greek dissenting Church . ... ... 45- 

CHAPTER XL 
On certain texts of Bossuet 55 

CHAPTER XII. 
Of the Council of Constantia ... ... ... 63 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Of Canons in general, and appeal to their authority ... 67 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Examination of a particular difficulty raised against the 
decisions of the Popes ... ... ... ... ... 71 

CHAPTER XV. 
Infallibility de facto .... ..... .... ... . ... ... 76 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Answer to some objections 95 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Of infallibility in the philosophical system 100 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
No danger in the consequence of a recognized supremacy . . . 101 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The same subject continued ; further explanations in regard 
to Infallibility ... ... 106 

CHAPTER XX. 

Observations on discipline concluded : Digression on the 
Latin laDguage ... ... ... ... 109 



BOOK SECOND. 

THE POPE IN HIS RELATIONS WITH TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTIES. 

CHAPTER I. 

A few words on Sovereignty ... ...115 



CONTENTS. XXxi 
CHAPTER II. 

Inconveniences of Sovereignty 116 

CHAPTER III. 
Ideas of antiquity on the great problem 121 

CHAPTER IV. 
Further considerations on the same subject 125 

CHAPTER V. 

Distinguishing characteristic of the power exercised by the 

Popes ... ... ... ... ... 128 

CHAPTER VI. 

Temporal power of the Popes — Wars which they have sus- 
tained as temporal princes ... ... ... 132 

CHAPTER VII. 

Objects the Popes had in view in their contests with sovereign 

princes ... ... ..; ... 149 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The nature of the power exercised by the Popes 172 

CHAPTER IX. 
Justification of the Pontifical Power 175 

CHAPTER X. 

Exercise of the Pope's supremacy over temporal sovereigns 185 

CHAPTER XI. 
Hypothetical application of the preceding principles ... 193 
CHAPTER XII. 

On the wars alleged to have arisen from the shock of the 

two powers ... 197 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Continuation of the same subject — Reflections on the wars 210 
CHAPTER XIV. 

The Bull of Alexander VI., " inter ccetera " 215 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Bull "In coend Domini " 217 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Digression on ecclesiastical jurisdiction 220 



XXX11 CONTENTS* 

BOOK THIRD. 

THE POPE IN HIS RELATIONS WITH CIVILIZATION AND THE 
HAPPINESS OP NATIONS. 

CHAPTER I. 

Missions . '■ ... ... 224 

: CHAPTER II. 

Civil liberty of mankind 237 

CHAPTER III. 
Institution of the Priesthood — Celibacy of Priests ... .... 245 

CHAPTER IV. 
Founding of European Monarchy ... ... 273 

CHAPTER V. 

How long princes commonly live — Secret alliance of Reli- 
gion and of Sovereignty ... 281 

CHAPTER VI. 
Observations on Russia ... ... ... ... ... 286 

CHAPTER VII. 
Further particular considerations on the Eastern Empire ... 290 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Recapitulation and conclusion of Book Third 295 



BOOK FOURTH. 

THE POPE IN HIS RELATIONS WITH THE CHURCHES CALLED 
SCHISMATICAL. 

CHAPTER I. 

Every schism atical Church is Protestant — Affinity of the two 
systems — Testimony of the Russian Church 300 

CHAPTER II. 

Pretended invariability of dogma in the separated Churches 
in the twelfth century 304 

CHAPTER III. 
Further considerations arising from the position of the 
Photian churches; particular remarks on the Anglican 
and Russian sects 307 



CONTENTS. XXX111 

CHAPTER IV. 
On the designation of Photian applied to the schismatical 
churches 310 

CHAPTER V. 

Impossibility of giving to the separated churches a name 
expressive of unity. — Principles of the whole discussion, 
and predilection of the author ... 314 

CHAPTER VI. 

False reasonings of the separated churches ; reflections on 
national and religious prejudices ... 322 

CHAPTER VII. 

Of Greece and its character. — Arts, sciences, and military 
power 325 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The same subject continued. — Moral character of the Greeks. 
Their hatred to the people of the "West 331 

CHAPTER IX. 
A particular trait of the Greek character. — Spirit of division 334 

CHAPTER X. 
A Photian paralogism cleared up. — Advantage pretended to 
be derived by the Photian churches from priority in chro- 
nological order 336 

CHAPTER XL 

What must be expected of the Greeks 341 

Conclusion of the Book. 



THE POPE. 



BOOK I. 

OF THE POPE IN HIS RELATIONS WITH THE CATHOLIC 
"CHURCH. 



CHAPTER I. 

INFALLIBILITY. 

What has not been said about infallibility in a theological 
point of view ! It would be difficult to add new arguments 
to those which the defenders of this high prerogative have 
already accumulated, in order to support it by undoubted 
authorities, and to disencumber it of the misrepresentations 
with which it has pleased the enemies of Christianity and 
of unity to surround it, in the hope of rendering it odious, 
at least, if it was by no means possible to do worse. 

But I am not aware it has been sufficiently remarked, 
with regard to this great question, as well as so many 
others, that theological truths are no other than general 
truths manifested and divinized within the sphere of re- 
ligion, in such manner that it is impossible to attack one 
without attacking a law of the world. 

Infallibility in the spiritual order of things, and sove- 
reignty in the temporal order, are two words perfectly syno- 
nymous. The one and the other denote that high power 
which rules over all other powers — from which they all 
derive their authority — which governs, and is not governed 
— which judges, and is not judged. 

When we say that the Church is infallible, we do not 
ask for her, it is quite essential to be observed, any parti- 

B 



2 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



cular privilege ; we only require that she possess the right 
common to all possible sovereignties, which all necessarily 
act as if infallible. For every government is absolute ; and 
from the moment it can be resisted, under pretext of error 
or injustice, it no longer exists. 

Sovereignty, indeed, has different forms. It speaks not 
the same language at Constantinople as at London ; but 
once it has spoken in the one place and the other, after 
the fashion peculiar to each, the bill and the fefta are alike 
without appeal. 

The case is the same in regard to the Church. In one 
way or another, it must be governed, like any other associa- 
tion whatsoever ; otherwise there would be no aggregation, 
no wholeness, no unity. It is the nature of this Govern- 
ment, therefore, to be infallible — that is to say, absolute — 
else it would no longer govern. 

In the judiciary order, which is nothing else than a por- 
tion of the Government, is it not obvious that we must ac- 
knowledge a power which judges, and is not judged ; and 
that for no other reason than that it pronounces in the name 
of the supreme power of which it is considered the organ 
and the voice ? Let us view it as we will, let us give to 
this high power whatever name we please, there must 
always be one to whom it never can be said — " You have 
erred." As a matter of course, the party condemned is 
always displeased with the sentence, and never doubts of 
the injustice of the tribunal. But disinterested policy, 
which looks from a higher point of view, makes no account 
of these vain complaints. It knows there are limits beyond 
which none must proceed ; that interminable trials, appeals 
without end, and the uncertain tenure of properties, are, if 
it may be so expressed, more unjust than injustice. 

The question, then, is to know where resides sovereignty 
in the Church ? For, once it is recognized, there is no 
longer room to appeal from its decisions. 

Now, if there be anything evident to reason as well as 
to faith, it is, that the universal Church is a monarchy. 
The very idea of universality supposes this form of Govern- 
ment, the absolute necessity of which rests on the twofold 



CHAP. I.] 



INFALLIBILITY. 



s 



ground of the number of subjects, and the geographical 
extent of the empire. So all Catholic writers, worthy of 
the name, agree unanimously that the rule of the Church 
is monarchical, but sufficiently tempered with aristocracy 
to be the best and the most perfect of governments. 51 

Bellarmin so understands it ; and he admits, with per- 
fect candour, that mixed monarchical government is better 
than pure monarchy. 13 

It may be remarked that in no age of Christianity has 
this monarchical form been contested or undervalued, ex- 
cept by the factious whom it embarrassed. 

The rebels of the sixteenth century attributed sove- 
reignty to the Church — that is, to the people. The 
eighteenth century did only transfer these maxims to po- 
litics ; the system and the theory are the same, even to 
their remotest consequences. What difference is there be- 
tween the Church of God, guided solely by His word, and 
the great republic, one and indivisible, governed solely by 
the laws and by the deputies of the sovereign people ? 
None. It is the same folly, renewed only at a different 
time and under another name. 

What is a republic, once it has exceeded certain dimen- 
sions ? It is a country, more or less extensive, commanded 
by a certain number of men, who call themselves the re- 
public. But the government is always one ; for there is 
not, nay, there cannot be, a dispersed republic. Thus, 
in the time of the Roman republic, the republican sove- 
reignty was in the Forum; and the subject countries — that 
is to say, about two-thirds of the known world — were a 
monarchy, of which the Forum was the absolute and mer- 
ciless sovereign. Eemove this state of rule, and there 
remains no longer any tie or common government, and all 
unity disappears. 

Very little to the purpose, then, have the Presbyterian 
Churches pretended to make us accept, by dint of talking, 
as a possible hypothesis, the republican form, which by no 

a Certum est monarchicum illud regimen esse aristocratic ali- 
qua temperatum. (Duval, De sup. Potest. Papae, part, i., qusest. 1.) 
b Bellarmin, De Summo Pontif., cap. iii. 

B 2 



4 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



means belongs to them except in a divided and particular 
sense, viz., that each country has its Church, which is 
republican ; but there is not, and there cannot be, a Chris- 
tian republican Church: so that the Presbyterian form 
destroys that article of the Apostles' Creed which, never- 
theless, the ministers of this persuasion are obliged to pro- 
nounce at least every Sunday : "I believe in the One, 
Holy, CATHOLIC and Apostolic Church/' For as 
soon as there is no longer a centre or common government, 
there can be no unity, nor consequently an universal or 
Catholic Church, since there is no individual Church which, 
under this supposition, has even the constitutional means 
of knowing that it is in religious communion with other 
Churches. 

To maintain that a number of independent Churches 
form one universal Church, is to maintain in other words 
that all the political governments of Europe constitute only 
one universal government. These two ideas are identical 
There is no room for cavil. 

If any one thought of proposing a kingdom of France 
without a King of France, an empire of Russia without an 
Emperor of Russia, he would justly be considered out of 
his mind ; it would nevertheless be exactly the same idea 
as that of an universal Church without a chief. 

It would be superfluous to speak of an aristocracy ; for, 
there never having been in the Church a body that pre- 
tended to rule it under any form, whether elective or here- 
ditary, it follows that its Government is necessarily monar- 
chical, every other form being rigorously excluded. 

Monarchical government once established, infallibility 
becomes a necessary consequence of supremacy — or, rather, 
it is absolutely the same thing, under a different name. 
But although this identity be evident, never have men seen, 
or been willing to see, that the whole question depends on 
this truth ; and this truth depending, in its turn, on the 
very nature of things, it by no means requires to be sup- 
ported by theology ; — so that, in speaking of unity as neces- 
sary, error (supposing it possible) could not be opposed to 
the Sovereign Pontiff, any more than it can be in oppo- 



CHAP. I.] 



INFALLIBILITY. 



5 



sition to temporal Sovereigns, who have never pretended to 
infallibility. It is, in reality, absolutely the same thing in 
practice not to be liable to error, and to be above being 
accused of it. Thus, even though it should be agreed that 
no Divine promise has been made to the Pope, he would 
not be less infallible, or considered such, as the highest tri- 
bunal ; for every judgment from which there can be no 
appeal, is and ought to be held just in every human asso- 
ciation, under all imaginable forms of government ; and 
every sound statesman will understand me when I say that 
the question is, not only to know whether the Sovereign 
Pontiff is, but also whether he ought to be, infallible. 

He who should have the right to say to the Pope that he 
is wrong, would also, on the same ground, be entitled to. 
disobey him — which would entirely do away with supremacy 
(or infallibility) ; and this fundamental idea is so striking, 
that one of the most learned Protestant authors of our age a 
has written a dissertation to prove that the appeal from the 
Pope to a future council destroys visible unity. Nothing 
can be more true ; for, from an habitual and indispensable 
government, there can be no appeal, under pain of the dis- 
solution of the body governed, to a power that only exists 
occasionally. 

Behold, then, on the one hand, Mosheim, who demon- 
strates, by irrefragable proofs, that appeal to a future 
council destroys the visible unity of the Church — that is to 
say, Catholicity in the first place, and shortly afterwards 
Christianity itself ; and, on the other hand, Fleury, who, 
enumerating the liberties of his Church, says, We believe 
that it is permitted to appeal from the Pope to a future 

Council, NOTWITHSTANDING THE BULLS OF PlUS II. AND 

Julius II., which have forbidden it. 5 

It is, indeed, strange that those Gallican doctors should 
be ignominiously compelled, through the excess of their 

8 Laur. Mosheimii Dissert, de Appel. ad Concil. univ. Ecclesiae 
unitatem spectabilem tollentibus. (Dans l'ouvrage du docteur 
Marchetti, torn, ii., p. 208.) 

b Fleurv on the Liberties of the Gallican Church. Nouv. opusc. 
Paris, 1807, 12mo. p. 30. 



6 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



national prejudices, to see themselves refuted at last by 
Protestant Theologians. Would that such a spectacle had 
been only once presented ! 

The innovators Mosheim had in view maintained, " that 
the Pope has a right only to preside over councils, and that 
the government of the Church is aristocratic/' But, says 
Fleury, this opinion is condemned at Rome and in France. 

This opinion, therefore, has all the conditions necessary 
to make it be condemned. But, if the government of the 
Church is not aristocratic, it follows that it must be mo- 
narchical ; and if monarchical, as it certainly and invin- 
cibly is, what authority shall receive an appeal from its 
decisions ? 

Endeavour to divide the Christian world into patriarch- 
ates, as the schismatical Churches of the East would have 
it, each patriarch, in this supposition, would have the same 
privileges which we here attribute to the Pope ; and in like 
manner none could appeal from his decisions, for there must 
always be a limit which cannot be overstepped. The sove- 
reignty would be divided, but would always exist ; it would 
only be necessary to make a change in the Creed, and say, 
/ believe in divided and independent Churches. 

To this monstrous idea we should find ourselves driven ; 
but it would ere long be improved upon by temporal princes, 
who, making very little account of this vain patriarchal 
division, would establish the independence of their parti- 
cular churches, and disencumber themselves of the patriarch, 
as has happened in Russia ; so that, instead of one infalli- 
bility, rejected as too sublime a privilege, we should have 
as many as it would suit policy to create by the division of 
states. Religious sovereignty, fallen in the first instance 
from the Pope to patriarchs, would descend afterwards from 
them to synods, and all would end by Anglican supremacy 
and pure Protestantism ; an inevitable state of things, and 
which can only be more or less delayed or avowed wherever 
the Pope reigns not. Once admit appeal from his decrees, 
and there is no longer government, unity, or a visible 
Church. 

Because of not having understood these obvious prin- 



CHAP. I.] 



INFALLIBILITY. 



7 



ciples, have theologians of the first order, such as Bossuet 
and Fleury, for instance, missed the idea of infallibility, so 
as to entitle the good sense of laymen to smile as they read 
them. 

The first tells us quite seriously that the doctrine of in- 
fallibility was first broached at the Council of Florence ; a 
and Fleury still more precisely names the Dominican Caje- 
tan as the author of this doctrine under the pontificate of 
Julius II. 

It cannot be comprehended how men, otherwise so dis- 
tinguished, have been able to confound two ideas so diffe- 
rent as those of believing and maintaining a dogma. 

Wrangling is no attribute of the Catholic Church ; she 
believes without discussion, for faith is a belief through cha- 
rity and charity argues not. 

The Catholic knows that he cannot be deceived ; he 
knows, moreover, that, if he could be led into error, there 
would no longer be revealed truth, nor assurance for man 
in this world, since every divinely-instituted society supposes 
infallibility, as Mallebranche has admirably remarked. 

The Catholic faith has no need, therefore (and this is 
its principal characteristic, which has not been sufficiently 
remarked), to return upon itself, to interrogate itself with 
regard to its belief, and to ask itself why it believes ; it is 
not possessed with that disputative restlessness by which 
sects are agitated. Doubt engenders books : why, then, 
should she write, who never doubts ? 

But, a stranger though she be to all idea of contention, 
if any dogma comes to be disputed, she moves from her 
proper state ; she seeks the grounds of the dogma called in 
question ; she interrogates antiquity ; she creates words 
especially, of which her good faith had no need, but which 
are become necessary to characterize the dogma, and raise 
between the innovators and her children an everlasting 
barrier. 

I must humbly beg pardon of the illustrious Bossuet ; 
but when he tells us that the doctrine of infallibility was 
introduced in the fourteenth century, he appears to draw 
* Hist, de Bossuet, Pieces justific. du VI e liv., p. 392. 



8 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



near to those men whom he has so much and so well com- 
bated. Did not Protestants say, also, that the doctrine of 
transubstantiation was not more ancient than the name ? 
And did not the Arians argue, in the same fashion, against 
consubstantiality ? • Bossuet, may I be permitted to say it, 
without disrespect to so great a man, was evidently in the 
wrong on this important point. We must guard against 
taking a word for the thing expressed, and the commence- 
ment of an error for that of a dogma. The truth is pre- 
cisely the contrary of what Fleury teaches : for it was about 
the time he assigns that men began not to believe, but to 
discuss, infallibility* The disputes raised on the supre- 
macy of the Pope, caused the question to be more narrowly 
inquired into, and the defenders of truth called this supre- 
macy infallibility, in order to distinguish it from every 
other kind of sovereignty ; but there is nothing new in the 
Church, and never will it believe what it has not always 
believed. Would Bossuet prove to us the novelty of this 
doctrine, let him assign a period in the history of the 
Church when the dogmatical decisions of the Holy See 
were not laws ; let him blot out all the writings in which 
he has maintained the contrary with overwhelming logic, 
immense erudition, and unrivalled eloquence ; above all, 

a The first appeal to a future council is that made by Thaddeus 
in the name of Frederick II., in 1245. There is said to he some 
doubt as to this appeal, because it was addressed to the Pope and 
a more general council. It is sought to be shown that the first 
undoubted appeal is that of Duplessis, made the 13th June, 1303 ; 
but it is like to the former, and evinces excessive embarrassment. 
It is made to the Council, and to the Holy Apostolic See, and to him 
and to those before whom it can and ought to be best carried of 
right. (Natalis Alex, in sec. xiii. and xiv. art. 5, sec. 11.) 
In the eighty years which follow are found eight appeals, worded 
thus : To the Holy See, to the Sacred College, to the future Pope, to 
the Pope better informed, to the Council, to the Tribunal of God, to 
the Most Holy Trinity, to Jesus Christ in fine. (See Doctor Mar- 
chetti, Crit. de Fleury, in appen. pp. 257 and 260.) It is worth 
while to refer to these absurdities ; they prove the novelty of 
these appeals, as well as the embarrassment of the appellants, 
who could not more clearly acknowledge the absence of all tri- 
bunal superior to the Pope than by wisely appealing to the Most 
Holy Trinity. 



CHAP. II.] 



COUNCILS. 



9 



let him point out the tribunal which examined these deci- 
sions and reformed them. 

If, moreover, he grants, proves, demonstrates that the 
dogmatical decrees of the Sovereign Pontiffs have always 
been held law in the Church, let him say as he pleases that 
the doctrine of infallibility is new : what can it matter ? 



CHAPTER II. 

COUNCILS. 

Vainly, in order to preserve unity and a visible tribunal, 
would recourse be had to councils, the nature and rights of 
which it is essential we should examine. Let us begin by 
an observation which admits not of the least doubt, viz., 
that a periodical or intermittent sovereignty is a contradic- 
tion in terms ; for sovereignty must always live, always 
watch, always act. There is no medium for it between life 
and death, 

Now, councils being occasional powers in the Church, 
and not only so, but extremely rare and purely accidental, 
without any periodical and legal return, the government of 
the Church could not belong to them. 

Councils, besides, decide nothing without appeal, unless 
they be general, and such councils are attended with so 
much inconvenience, that it cannot have entered into the 
designs of Providence to confide to them the government of 
the Church. 

In the first ages of Christianity councils were much more 
easily assembled, because the Church was much less nume- 
rous, and because the united powers, accumulated on the 
heads of the emperors, enabled them to call together a suf- 
ficiently great number of bishops, to make at once such an 
impression as that nothing more was required than the 
assent of the rest. And, nevertheless, what pains did it 
not cost — what difficulty was there not in assembling them ! 

But, in modern times, since the civilized world has been 
cut up into so many sovereignties, and immensely extended 



10 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK L 



by our adventurous navigators, an oecumenical council has 
become an impossibility. Five or six years would not suffice 
merely to convoke all the bishops, and to establish legal 
proof of their convocation. 

I am almost convinced, that if ever a general council of 
the Church could appear necessary, which is far, I think, 
from being probable, it would be determined according to 
the prevailing ideas of the age, which always exercise a cer- 
tain influence in affairs, to hold a representative assembly. 
It being morally, physically, and geographically impossible 
to assemble all the bishops, why should not each Catholic 
province send deputies to the states-general of the mo- 
narchy ? The commons never having been called thereto, 
and the aristocracy being now both too numerous and too 
widely disseminated to appear in person, what better idea 
could be fallen upon than a representation of the Episco- 
pacy ? It would in reality be nothing else than a form 
already recognized, but only extended, for in all councils 
the proxies of the absent have been always received. 

In whatever way these holy assemblies be convoked and 
constituted, the Inspired Writings are far from offering, in 
support of the authority of councils, any passage comparable 
to that which establishes the authority and prerogatives of 
the Sovereign Pontiff. There is nothing so clear, nothing 
so magnificent, as the promises contained in this latter 
text ; but if I am told, for instance, as often as two or three 
are gathered together in my name I shall be in the midst of 
them, I will ask what these words mean, and it will be very 
difficult to make me see in them any other thing than what 
I already see, namely, that God will deign to lend a more 
particularly merciful ear to every assembly of men gathered 
together to pray. 

Other passages would present other difficulties ; but I 
pretend not to raise the least doubt in regard to the infalli- 
bility of a general council ; this only I say, that it holds 
this high privilege of its chief, to whom the promises have 
been made. We know well that the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against the Church. But why? Because of Peter, 
on whom she is built. Remove this foundation, how should 



CHAP. III.] AUTHORITY OF COUNCILS. 



11 



she be infallible, since she would no longer exist ? To be 
anything whatever, it is necessary, if I mistake not, to be. 

Let us never forget, that no promise was ever made to 
the Church apart from its head ; and reason alone would 
show this, since the Church, like every other moral body, 
being incapable of existence without unity, the promises 
can only have been made to unity, which disappears with 
the Sovereign Pontiff. 



CHAPTER III. 

DEFINITION AND AUTHORITY OF COUNCILS. 

Thus oecumenical councils are nothing else than the par- 
liament or states-general of the Church, assembled by the 
authority and under the presidency of the Sovereign. 

Wherever there is a Sovereign, and in the Catholic eco- 
nomy his existence is undeniable, there can be no legiti- 
mate national assemblies without him. No sooner is his 
veto pronounced, than the assembly is dissolved, or its 
co-legislative power suspended ; if it resists, there is revo- 
lution. 

This very simple and undoubted truth, which never can 
be shaken, shows in its full light the extreme absurdity of 
the question so much discussed : whether the Pope be above 
the council, or the council above the Pope? For it is the 
same as to inquire, in other words, whether the Pope be 
above the Pope, or the council above the council ? 

I firmly believe, with Leibnitz, that God has hitherto 
preserved the truly oecumenical councils from all error con- 
trary to sound doctrine? I believe, moreover, that He will 
always so preserve them ; but, since there can be no oecu- 
menical council without the Pope, what signifies the ques- 
tion, whether it be above or inferior to the Pope ? 

Is the king of Great Britain superior to the parliament, 

a Leibnitz, Nouv. Essais sur l'Entend. Humain, p. 461 et suiv. 
Pensees, torn. ii. p. 45. N.B. The word truly is here made use 
of to exclude the Council of Trent, in his celebrated correspon- 
dence with BossueL 



12 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



or is the parliament above the king ? Neither way ; hut 
the king and the parliament, united, constitute the legis- 
lature or the sovereignty ; but there is not an inhabitant 
of the three kingdoms who would not rather have his coun- 
try governed by a king without a parliament than by a 
parliament without a king. 

The question, therefore, is precisely what in English is 
called nonsense* 

Although I do not by any means think of disputing the 
high prerogative of general councils, I do not the less under- 
stand the immense inconvenience of those great assemblies, 
and the abuse to which they were subjected in the first ages 
of the Church. The Grecian emperors, whose theological 
dynasty is one of the great scandals of history, were always 
ready to convoke councils ; and, when they absolutely willed 
it, there was no help but consent, for the Church ought not 
to refuse to sovereignty, which obstinately insists, anything 
that only occasions inconvenience. Modern incredulity has 
often been pleased to point out the influence exercised by 
princes over councils, in order to make us despise those 
assemblies, or to separate them from the authority of the 
Pope. It has been answered thousands of times in regard 
to both of these false conclusions ; but, let it say what it 
will on this subject, nothing is more indifferent to the 
Catholic Church, which ought not to be, and cannot 
be, governed by councils. The emperors, in the first ages 
of the Church, had only to will it, in order to call together 
a council, and they willed it but too often. " The bishops, 
on their side, became accustomed to look upon those assem- 
blies as a permanent tribunal, always open to zeal and to 
doubt ; hence the frequent mention they make of them in 
their writings, and the extreme importance they attached to 
them. But if they had beheld other times, if they had 
reflected on the dimensions of the globe, and if they had 
foreseen what was destined to happen one day in the world, 

a Not that I pretend to liken in everything the government of 
the Church to that of Great Britain, where the states-general are 
permanent. 1 only adopt whatever in the comparison tends to 
support my argument. 



CHAP. III.] AUTHORITY OF COUNCILS. 13' 

tliey would have well understood that an accidental tribunal, 
depending on the caprice of princes, and on meetings ex- 
ceedingly rare and difficult, could not have been chosen to 
govern the eternal and universal Church. 

When, therefore, Bossuet inquires — with that tone of 
superiority less unpardonable, to be sure, in him than any 
other man — "why so many councils, if the decision of the 
Popes always sufficed to the Church f" Cardinal Orsi 
makes an admirable reply : — " Ask not us, ask not the 
Popes Damasus, Celestine, Agatho, Adrian, Leo, who have 
condemned all heresies from Arius to Eutyches, with the 
consent of the Church, or of an immense majority, and 
who never imagined that oecumenical councils were neces- 
sary to repress them. Inquire of the Greek emperors, who 
absolutely willed there should be councils, who convoked 
them, who exacted the assent of the Popes, and excited so 
much useless disturbance in the Church."" a 

To the Sovereign Pontiff alone belongs essentially the 
right of convoking general councils, which does not exclude 
the moderate and legitimate influence of sovereigns. He 
alone is judge of the circumstances which require this 
extreme remedy. Those who pretended to assign this 
power to temporal authority, quite overlooked the strange 
paralogism into which they fell. They suppose an univer- 
sal and (what is more) an everlasting monarchy ; they go 
back, without reflecting, to those times when all the mitres 
in the world could be called together by one sceptre only, 
or by two. " The Emperor alone, : " says Fleury, " was 
able to convoke general councils, because he alone could 
command the bishops to undertake extraordinary journeys. 
He, for the most part, defrayed the expenses of them, and 
indicated the place they were to be held in. . . . TJw 
Popes confined themselves to asking for these assemblies, 
. . . and they often asked without obtaining^ b 

Well ! here is another proof that the Church cannot be 

a Joseph. Aug. Orsi De irreformabili Rom. Pontificis in de- 
fmiendis fidei controversiis judicio. Romae, 1772, 4to., torn, iii., 
lib. ii. cap. xx. pp. 181, 384. 

b Nouv. Opusc. de Fleury, p. 138. 



14 THE POPE. [BOOK I. 

governed by general councils — God, the author of nature 
and of the Church, not having been able to put the laws 
of his Church in contradiction with those of nature. 

Political sovereignty being essentially neither indivisible 
nor perpetual, if we refuse to the Pope the right of convok- 
ing general councils, to whom shall we grant it ? "Would 
his most Christian Majesty summon the bishops of Eng- 
land, or his Britannic Majesty those of France ? See how 
these vain talkers have abused history ! and, worse still ! 
behold them combating the very nature of things, which 
absolutely requires, independently of all theological views, 
that an oecumenical council cannot be otherwise convoked 
than by an oecumenical power. 

But how could men, subject to a power — and subject 
they are, since it convokes them — be superior to that power, 
although separated from it ? The mere uttering of this 
proposition demonstrates its absurdity. 

It may be said, nevertheless, and quite truly in one 
sense, that a general council is above the Pope ; for, as 
there could be no council of this nature without the Pope, 
if it be said that the Pope and the whole Episcopacy are 
above the Pope — or, in other words, that the Pope alone 
cannot revise a dogma decided by himself and the bishops 
assembled in general council — the Pope and sound sense 
alike admit the proposition. 

But that the bishops, separated from the Pope, and in 
opposition to him, are above him, is what cannot but be 
looked upon, even in the least unfavourable view, as 
extravagant. 

And the first supposition, even if not rigidly restricted 
to dogma, no longer satisfies good faith, and allows a crowd 
of difficulties to remain. 

Where is sovereignty in the long intervals between oecu- 
menical councils ? Why should not the Pope have power 
to abrogate or change what he might have done in council, 
provided there be not question of dogmas, and if circum- 
stances imperiously require it ? If the wants of the 
Church called for one of those great measures which ad- 
mit of no delay, as we have seen twice over in the course 



CHAP. III.] AUTHORITY OF COUNCILS. 



15 



of the French Revolution, a what should be done ? Sup- 
posing the judgments of the Pope can only be reformed by 
a general council, who will summon together the council ? 
If the Pope refuses, who will oblige him ? And, in the 
meantime, how will the Church be governed, &c. &c. ? 

All these considerations recall us to the decision of sound 
sense, dictated by the clearest analogy, that the Bull of the 
Pope, speaking alone from his chair, differs only from 
canons pronounced in general council — as, for instance, an 
ordinance of the Marine, or of the Waters and Forests, 
differed, in regard to the French people, from one of Blois 
or of Orleans. 

The Pope, in order to dissolve the council, in as far as it 
is a council, has only to leave the room, saying : " I am 
no longer of it" From that moment it is no longer any- 
thing but an assembly, and an unlawful one if it persists. 
I never could understand the French when they affirm that 
the decrees of a general council have the force of law, inde- 
pendently of the acceptation or confirmation of the Sove- 
reign Pontiff. 5 

If they mean to say that the decrees of the council hav- 
ing been made under the presidency and with the approba- 
tion of the Pope or his legates, the Bull of approbation or 
confirmation which concludes the acts, is no longer any- 
thing else than a matter of form, we can understand them 
(still, however, as cavillers) ; if they would say anything 
beyond this, they are no longer to be borne with. 

But it will be said, perhaps, as is the fashion with mo- 
dern wranglers, if the Pope became heretical, mad, an 
enemy of the rights of the Church, &c, where would be 
the remedy ? 

a First, at the time of the Constitutional Church and of the 
civic oath. The respectable prelates, who believed themselves 
bound to resist the Pope at this latter epoch, believed that the ques- 
tion was, whether the Pope was mistaken ; whilst the point really 
was, to know whether they were bound to obey, even in the case that 
he was wrong. This would have much abridged the discussion. 

b Bergier, Diet. Theol., art. Conciles, No. IV. ; but lower down, 
at No. V. sect. 3, he classes among the marks of cecumenicity 
convocation by the Sovereign Pontiff, or his consent. 



16 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



I answer, in the first place, that the men who, in our 
days, delight in such suppositions — although, during 
eighteen hundred and thirty-six years, none of them 
have ever been realized — are either exceedingly simple or 
culpably blind. 

In the second place, and under all imaginable suppo- 
sitions, I ask in my turn : What would be done if the king 
of Great Britain were so far indisposed as to be no longer 
able to perform his functions ? What has been done in the 
case would be done again, or perhaps something else ; but 
would it follow, by any chance, that the parliament was 
above the king, or that it could be convoked by others than 
the king, &c. &c. &c. ? 

The more attentively we examine the subject, the more 
we shall be convinced that, notwithstanding the councils, 
and by virtue even of the councils, without the Papal 
monarchy the Church no longer exists. 

We may satisfy ourselves as to this by a very simple 
hypothesis. It is sufficient to suppose that the separated 
Eastern Church (all the dogmas of which were then at- 
tacked as well as our own) had been assembled in oecu- 
menical council at Constantinople, at Smyrna, or elsewhere, 
in order to pronounce anathema against the recent errors, 
whilst we were assembled at Trent for the same purpose : 
where would the Church have been ? Remove the Pope, 
and no answer can be given. 

And if the Indies, Africa, and America — which I shall 
suppose to be likewise peopled with Christians of the same 
description — had adopted the same measure, the difficulty 
becomes greater, confusion increases, and the Church dis- 
appears. 

Let it be observed, moreover, that the (ecumenical cha- 
racter in regard to councils does not arise from the number 
of bishops which compose them ; it is sufficient that all be 
convoked : then come who will. There were one hundred 
and eighty bishops at Constantinople in 381, there were a 
thousand at Rome in 1139, and ninety-five only in the 
same city in 1512, including the cardinals. Nevertheless, 
all these are general councils : a clear proof that councils 



CHAP. IV.] 



ANALOGIES. 



17 



derive their power only from their chief ; for, if councils 
had inherent and independent authority, the numbers con- 
stituting them could not be indifferent — all the more 
that, in this case, the acceptation of the Church is no 
longer necessary, and that decrees once pronounced are 
irrevocable. We have seen the number of voters decrease 
as far as eighty ; but, as there are neither canons nor 
customs which assign limits to the number, I am quite 
at liberty to diminish it to fifty, and even as low as ten ; 
and what man, let him be but moderately reasonable, will 
be made to believe that so small a number of bishops has 
a right to command the Pope and the Church ? 

This is not all. If, on occasion of any urgent want of 
the Church, the same zeal which animated of old the Em- 
peror Sigismund took possession at the same time of several 
princes, and that each one of them at the same time called 
together a council, where would be the oecumenical council 
and infallibility ? 

The state of temporal affairs will present farther analogies. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ANALOGIES DERIVED FROM TEMPORAL POWER. 

Suppose that, during an interregnum, there being no king 
of France, or the succession doubtful, the states-general 
were divided in opinion, and shortly afterwards literally 
separated, so as that there should be states-general at 
Paris and others at Lyons or elsewhere : where would be 
the kingdom of France ? This is the same question as the 
preceding : where would the Church be ? And, in either 
case, no answer can be given until the Pope or the king 
pronounce, " It is here." Remove the Queen-bee, you will 
still have bees in abundance ; but a hive, never. 

In order to escape the comparison of national assemblies, 
which is so urgent, so luminous, so decisive, our modern 
cavillers have objected that there is no parity between the 
councils of the Church and the states-general, because the 

o 



18 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



latter possessed only the right of representation. What 
sophistry ! what dishonesty ! How can they fail to see 
that there is question here of states-general such as the 
argument requires ? I enter not, therefore, into the inquiry 
whether they had a right to co-legislative power ; I sup- 
pose them possessed of this privilege : and what is wanting 
in the comparison ? Are not the oecumenical councils 
ecclesiastical states-general, and are not the states-general 
political oecumenical councils ? Are they not co-legislative, 
according to our 'supposition, until they separate, without 
being so a moment after ? Do not their power, their 
validity, their moral and legislative existence, depend on 
the sovereign who presides over them ? Do they not be- 
come seditious, separate, and consequently null, the mo- 
ment they act without him? And as soon as they are 
dispersed, does not the fulness of legislative power devolve 
on the person of the sovereign ? 

Does the ordinance of Blois, of Moulins, or of Orleans, 
impair in the least that of the Marine, the Woods and 
Waters, &c. ? 

If there be any difference between the states and general 
councils, it is wholly to the advantage of the former ; for 
there may be states-general, in the literal sense of the term, 
because they relate only to one empire, and because all 
the provinces of that empire are represented in them ; 
whilst a general council, in the literal sense of the term, is 
absolutely impossible, considering the great number of so- 
vereignties and the dimensions of the terrestrial globe, the 
superficies of which is well known to be equal to four great 
circles, each three thousand leagues in diameter. 

If it were remarked that, as the states-general are not 
permanent, can only be convoked by a superior, can only 
decide in accordance with him, and cease to exist at the 
last session, there necessarily results from this (without 
taking anything else into consideration), that they are not 
co-legislative in the full force of the term, I should have 
very little difficulty in replying to this objection ; for it 
would not be less certain that the states-general may be 
absolutely useless during the time they are assembled, and 



CHAP. IV.] 



ANALOGIES. 



19 



that all the while the sovereign legislator acts in concert 
with them. 

I should be entitled, nevertheless, to speak as unfavour- 
ably of councils as Gregory Nazianzen has done : " / never 
saw," said this great and holy personage, " a council assem- 
bled without danger and inconvenience. . . . To speak 
truly, I must say that I avoid, as much as I can, assem- 
blies of priests and bishops ; I never saw so much as one- 
concluded in a happy and agreeable manner, and which did 
not tend rather to increase evils than to remove them* 

But I will not urge this argument ; all the more, that 
the holy doctor, whose words I have just quoted, has, if I 
mistake not, explained his meaning. Councils may be 
useful. They would exist by natural, if not by ecclesias- 
tical right, there being nothing so natural, in theory par- 
ticularly, as that every human association should assemble 
as it best may — that is, by its representatives, under the 
presidency of a chief — in order to make laws, and watch 
over the interests of the community. I by no means con- 
test this point ; I only say that an intermittent represent- 
ative body (if, especially, it be casual and not periodical) 
is, by the very nature of things, always and everywhere 
unfit to govern ; and that during its sessions, even, it has 
no existence and legitimacy except through its chief. 

Let us transfer to England the political schism I have 
just supposed in France. Let the parliament be divided : 
where will be the true one ? With the king. But if it 
were doubtful who should be king, there would no longer 
be a parliament, but only assemblies endeavouring to find 
a king ; and, if they could not agree, there would be war 
and anarchy. Let us make a supposition still more to the 
point, and admit only an assembly : never will it be par- 
liament until it has found the king ; but it will exercise 
lawfully all the powers necessary to attain this great end ; 
for those powers, simply because they are necessary, are 
founded on natural right. As it is impossible for a nation 
to be literally assembled, it must act through its represent- 
atives. At all periods of anarchy, a certain number of 
a Greg. Naz. epist. lv. ad Procop. 
C 2 



20 



THE POPE. 



[book r. 



men will seize on power, for the purpose of establishing 
order in some way ; and if this assembly, retaining the 
ancient name and forms, enjoyed, moreover, the consent of 
the nation, manifested at least by its silence, it would 
possess all the legitimacy such unfortunate circumstances 
admit of. 

But if the monarchy, instead of being hereditary, were 
elective, and that there were several competitors elected 
by different parties, the assembly ought either to declare 
who should be king, if it discovered in favour of one of 
them obvious grounds of preference ; or, if it saw no such 
decisive grounds, set them all aside and elect another. 

But here would be the limits of its power. If it assumed 
the liberty of making other laws, the king, immediately 
after his accession, would have a right to reject them ; for 
the words anarchy and laws mutually exclude one another, 
and everything done in the former state can only have a 
momentary value, arising merely from circumstances. 

If the king found several things done in a parliamentary 
manner — that is, according to the principles of the consti- 
tution—he could give the royal sanction to these various dis- 
positions, which would become laws, binding even on the 
king-— who is, and on that account particularly, the image 
of God upon earth ; for, according to the beautiful thought 
of Seneca, "God obeys laws, but it was He who made 
them/' 

And in this sense the law might be said to be above the 
king, as a general council is above the Pope ; that is to 
say, that neither the king nor the Sovereign Pontiff can 
recall what has been done in a parliamentary manner, and 
by a council ; in other words, by themselves in parliament 
and in council — which, far from weakening the idea of 
monarchy, completes it, on the contrary, and carries it to 
its highest degree of perfection, by excluding all accessory 
notion of despotism or of inconstancy. 

Hume has made a brutal remark on the Council of Trent 
which it is worth while, nevertheless, to take into consi 
deration : — " It is the only general council which has bee 
held in an age truly learned and inquisitive. No on 



CHAP. V.] 



THE YOUTH OF NATIONS. 



21 



need expect to see another general council till the decay of 
learning and the progress of ignorance shall again fit man- 
kind for these great impostures/' a 

If you take from this passage the insulting and scur- 
rilous tone from which heresy is never free, b there remains 
a good deal that is true : the more enlightened the world 
becomes, the less will a general council be thought of. 
There have just been twenty-one the whole time since 
the origin of Christianity, which would give about one 
general council to each period of eighty years ; but we 
see that for two centuries and a half religion has done 
very well without them ; and I do not believe that any 
one thinks of them, notwithstanding the extraordinary 
wants of the Church, for which the Pope will provide 
much better than a general council, if men only under- 
stand how to make use of his power. 

The world is become too great for general councils, which 
seem only to have been intended for the youth of Chris- 
tianity. 



CHAPTER V. 

DIGRESSION ON WHAT IS CALLED THE YOUTH OF NATIONS. 

But this word youth reminds me of what ought to be 
observed here : that this expression, and" some others of 

a Hume's Elizabeth, 1653, chap, xxxix. note K. 

b I recommend this observation to the attention of all thinking- 
men. Truth in combating error never grows angry. In the 
enormous press of our controversial writings it requires a micro- 
scope to discover any sallies of ill humour proceeding from human 
weakness. Such men as Bellarmin, Bossuet, &c, have been able 
to combat all their lifetime without permitting themselves, I say 
not an insult, but even the slightest personality. Protestant 
doctors share this privilege, and deserve the same praise whenever 
they combat incredulity ; but in this case it is the Christian who 
does battle with the Deist, the Materialist, the Atheist, and, con- 
sequently, it is still truth combating error, but the moment they 
turn against the Roman Catholic Church they insult ; for error 
is never calm in contending with truth. This twofold character 
is visible as it is decisive. There are few demonstrations that 
speak so directly to conscience. 



22 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



the same kind, relate to the whole duration of a body or 
an individual. If I picture to myself, for instance, the 
Koman republic, which lasted five hundred years, I know 
what these expressions mean : the youth, or the earliest 
years of the Roman republic ; and if there be question of 
a man who is to live about eighty years, I shall be guided 
in this case also by the total duration, and it is obvious 
that if man lived a thousand years, he would be young at 
two hundred. What, then, is the youth of a religion that 
is destined to last as long as the world ? There is much 
said about the first ages of Christianity. In truth, I know 
not what assurance we have that they are past. What- 
ever may be the case, there cannot be a more fallacious 
argument than that which would recall us to the first ages 
without knowing what is said. 

It would be better to say, perhaps, that in one sense the 
Church never grows old. The Christian religion is the 
only institution which knows no decay, because it alone is 
Divine. As to externals, practices, ceremonies, it makes 
allowance more or less for human variations. But in things 
essential it is always the same, — £f its years shall not fail" 
Thus, rather than overthrow the laws of the human race, 
it will allow itself to be obscured by the barbarism of the 
middle ages ; but it produces, nevertheless, in those times, 
a multitude of superior men, who from it alone derive 
their superiority. It renews itself afterwards together with 
mankind, accompanies them, perfects them in their various 
relations — differing thus, and that in a striking manner, 
from all human institutions and empires, even, which have 
their infancy, their manhood, their old age, and their end. 

Without urging these observations, let us not speak so 
much (now that the world is grown so great) of the first 
ages, or of oecumenical councils ; particularly let us avoid 
dwelling on the first ages, as if time had any hold on the 
Church. The wounds inflicted on her proceed only from 
our vices ; centuries, as they glide past, can only promote 
her improvement. 

I shall not conclude this chapter without declaring anew, 



CHAP. V.] 



THE YOUTH OF NATIONS. 



23 



in express terms, my perfect orthodoxy on the subject of 
general councils. It is quite possible, no doubt, that cer- 
tain circumstances may render them necessary ; and I am 
far from denying, for instance, that the Council of Trent 
accomplished things which it alone could accomplish. But 
never will the Sovereign Pontiff show himself more infal- 
lible than in deciding the question whether a council is 
indispensable, and never can temporal power do better than 
refer to him the decision of this question. 

The French people are not aware, perhaps, that the most 
reasonable thing that can be said in regard to the Pope and 
general councils has been written by two French theolo- 
gians, in two passages of a few lines, distinguished by good 
sense and ingenuity, — passages well known and appreciated 
in Italy by the wisest defenders of legitimate monarchy. 
Let us hear, in the first place, the great champion of the 
sixteenth century : — 

" By the infallibility which is supposed to belong to 
Pope Clement, as to the sovereign tribunal of the Church, 
is not understood that he is assisted by the Spirit of God, 
so as to have the light necessary for deciding all questions 
whatsoever ; but his infallibility consists in this, that he is 
privileged to judge all questions in regard to which he feels 
himself sufficiently enlightened to decide ; whilst those in 
regard to which he does not conceive himself sufficiently 
enlightened to pass judgment, he refers to the council." a 

This is exactly the theory of states-general, which every 
right-thinking mind is constantly obliged to adopt. 

Ordinary questions, in regard to which the king knows 
that he is sufficiently aided with light, he decides himself ; 
others, in regard to which he does not understand that he is 
sufficiently enlightened, he refers to the states-general oner 
wjiich he presides. But he is always sovereign. 

The other French theologian is Thomassin, who thus 
expresses himself in one of his learned dissertations : — 

" Let us no longer contend whether an oecumenical coun- 
cil is superior or inferior to the Pope. Let us be satisfied 

a Perroniana, article Infallibility. 



24 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK L 



to know that the Pope, in the midst of the council, is 
above himself ; and that the council, deprived of its chief, 
is beneath itself." a 

Never was language more to the purpose. Thomassin, 
particularly, embarrassed by the declaration of 1682, has 
acquitted himself admirably, and has given us to under- 
stand sufficiently well what he thought of beheaded coun- 
cils ; and the two passages united concur with many others 
in making known to us the universal and invariable doc- 
trine of the clergy of France, so often invoked by the apos- 
tles of the four articles. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SUPREMACY OF THE SOVEREIGN PONTIFF RECOGNIZED IN EVERY 
AGE: CATHOLIC TESTIMONIES OF THE CHURCHES OF THE WEST 
AND THE EAST. 

Nothing in all ecclesiastical history is so invincibly demon- 
strated — for conscience, especially, which never disputes — 
as the monarchical supremacy of the Sovereign Pontiff. It 
was not, indeed, at its origin, what it became some cen- 
turies later ; but in this precisely does it show itself divine : 
for everything that exists legitimately and for ages, exists 
at first in germ, and is developed successively. 5 

Bossuet has most happily expressed this germ of unity, 
and all the privileges of the Chair of St. Peter, already 
visible in the person of his predecessor : — 

" Peter," he says, " appears the first in every way : the 
first in making profession of faith, the first in the obli- 
gation of exercising charity, the first of all the apostles 

a Ne digladiemur major synodo Pontifex, vel Pontifice syno- 
dus oecumenica sit, sed agnoscamus succenturiatum synodo Pon- 
tificern se ipso majorem esse ; truncatam pontifice synodum 
se ipsa esse minorem. 

Thomassin, in Dissert, de Cone. Chalced. No. XIV. Orsi, de 
Rom. Pont. Auctor. lib. i. cap. xv. art. iii. p. 100 ; et lib. ii. cap. 
xx. p. 184. Romae, 1772, 4to. 

b See this principle established in the author's work on the Re- 
generative Principle of Human Institutions, 



CHAP. VI.] SUPREMACY OF THE PONTIFF. 25 

who saw our Saviour risen from the dead, as he was also 
his first witness before all the people ; the first when there 
was question of filling up the number of the apostles, the 
first to confirm the faith by a miracle, the first to convert 
the Jews, the first to receive the Gentiles, the first every- 
where. But it is impossible to say all ; everything concurs 
in establishing his primacy ; yes, everything, even his faults. 
. . . The power given to several is not bestowed without 
restriction, whilst that given to one alone, and over all, and 
without exception, is communicated in full ; ... all receive 
the same power, but not in the same degree, nor to the 
same extent. Jesus Christ begins by the first, and in this 
first he develops all the rest, ... in order to teach us that 
ecclesiastical authority first established in the person of one, 
has only been disseminated on condition of being always 
recalled to its principle of unity, and that all those who 
shall have to exercise it, ought to hold themselves inse- 
parably united with the same chair/' a 

He then proceeds in his voice of thunder : — 
" It is that chair so celebrated by the Fathers of the 
Church, in exalting which they have vied with one another, 
attributing to it the principality of the apostolic chair, the 
chief principality, the source of unity, the highest degree of 
sacerdotal dignity ; the Mother Church, which holds in her 
hand the conduct of all other churches ; the head of the 
Episcopate, whence proceeds the light of government ; the 
principal chair, the only chair, through which alone all are 
able to preserve unity. In these words you hear St. Optatus, 
St. Augustine, St. Cyprian, St. Irenaeus, St. Prosper, St. 
Avitus, St. Theodoret, the Council of Chalcedon, and the 
other councils ; Africa, Gaul, Greece, Asia, the East and 
the West, united together. . . . Since it was the design of 
God to permit that there should arise schisms and heresies, 
there was no constitution that could sustain itself more 
firmly, or more powerfully bear them down. By this con- 
stitution everything in the Church is strong, because every- 
thing therein is divine and united ; and, as each part is 
divine, the bond also is divine, and all together is such, 
a Sermon sur 1' Unite, Part I. 



26 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



that each part acts with the power of the whole. . . . For 
this reason our predecessors declared . . . that they acted 
in the name of St. Peter, by the authority given to all the 
bishops, in the person of St. Peter, as vicars of St. Peter ; 
and they spoke thus, even when they acted by their ordi- 
nary and subordinate authority : because all was committed, 
in the first place, to St. Peter ; and because such is the cor- 
respondence of one part with another, throughout the whole 
body of the Church, that, what each bishop does according 
to the rule and in the spirit of Catholic unity, the whole 
Church, the whole Episcopate, and the chief of the Epis- 
copate do together with him." 

One can scarcely venture now to cite the texts which 
incontestably establish the Pope's supremacy in every age, 
from the cradle of Christianity to our own days. Those 
texts are so well known, that they belong to all ; and one 
appears, in quoting them, only to make a vain parade of 
erudition. Nevertheless, how refuse, in a work like this, 
to cast a rapid glance at those precious monuments of the 
most pure tradition ? 

Long before the end of the persecutions, and before the 
Church (perfectly free, as yet, in its communications) could 
bear testimony, without embarrassment, to its belief by a 
sufficiently great number of external and palpable acts, 
Irenaeus, who had conversed with the disciples of the apos- 
tles, appealed already to the Chair of St. Peter as his 
rule of faith, and acknowledged this governing primacy 
('Rye/uLovta), even then so famous in the Church. 

Tertullian, so early as the end of the second century, 
exclaims : " Behold an edict, and even a peremptory 
edict, emanated from the Sovereign Pontiff, the bishop of 
bishops." a 

This same Tertullian, so near the tradition of apostolic 
times, and who, before his fall, so carefully collected it, 

a Tertull. De Pudicitia, cap. i. Audio edictum et quidem per- 
emptorium : Pontifex scilicet maximus, episcopus episcoporum 
dicit, &c. ( Tertull. Oper. Paris, 1808, folio, edit. Pamelli, p. 999.) 
Le ton irrite, et meme un peu sarcastique, ajoute sans doute au 
poids du temoignage. 



CHAP. VI.] TESTIMONIES OE THE CHURCH. 



27 



said : " The Lord has given the keys to Peter, and, 
through him, to the Church."* 

Optatus of Milevis repeats : "St. Peter has alone re- 
ceived the keys of the kingdom of heaven, in order to com- 
municate them to the other pastors." b 

St. Cyprian, after having quoted the ever-memorable 
words : " Thou art Peter" &c, adds : " From that 
source flow the ordination of bishops and the form of 
the Church." c 

St. Augustine, instructing his people, and with them the 
whole Church, does not express himself less clearly : " The 
Lord/' says he, " has confided to us his sheep, because he 
has confided them to Peter." d 

St. Ephrem, in Syria, speaks of a simple bishop as 
" occupying the place of Peter ; " e because he considered 
the Holy See the source of the Episcopate. 

St. Gaudentius, speaking from the same idea, calls St. 
Ambrose the successor of Peter. f 

Peter of Blois writes to a bishop : " Father, call to mind 
that you are the vicar of the blessed Peter." s 

And all the bishops of a council of Paris declare that 
they are only the vicars of the prince of the apostles}" 

St. Gregory of Nyssa confesses the same doctrine in pre- 
sence of the Eastern Church : " Jesus Christ," says he, 

* Memento claves Dominum Petro, et per eum Ecclesiae reli- 
quisse. — Idem, Scorpiac, cap. x. Oper. ejusd. ibid. 

b Bono nnitatis B. Petrus, . . . et praeferri apostolis omnibus 
meruit, et claves regni coelorum communicandas cseteris solus ac- 
cepit. — Lib. vii. contra Parmenianum, No. 3, Oper. S. Opt. p. 104. 

c Inde. . . episcoporum ordinatio et Ecclesiarum ratio decurrit. 
— Cyp. epist. xxxiii. ed. Paris xxvii. Pamel. Oper. S. Cyp. p. 216. 

d Commendavit nobis Dominus oves suas, quia Petro commen- 
davit. — Serm. ccxcvi. No. XI. Oper. torn. v. col. 1202. 

e Basilius locum Petri obtinens, &c. — S. Ephrem. Oper. p. 725. 

f Tanquani Petri successor, &c. — Gaud. Brix. Tract, hab. in 
die suae ordin. Magna biblioth. PP. torn. ii. col. 59, folio, Paris. 

£ 'Recolite, pater, quia beati Petri vicarius estis. — ■ Epist. 
cxlviii. Op. Petri Blesensis, p. 233. 

h Dominus B. Petro cujus vices indigni gerimus, ait : Quod- 
cumque ligaveris, &c. — Concil. Paris, vi. torn. vii. Concil. col. 
1661. 



28 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK L 



" has given, through Peter, to the bishops, the keys of 
the kingdom of heaven. " a 

And now that we have learned the doctrine in regard to 
this point of Africa, Syria, Asia-Minor, and France, we 
rejoice all the more to hear a holy and learned Scotchman 
declare, in the sixth century, " that bad bishops usurp the 
Chair of St. Peter." b 

So persuaded were men everywhere that the whole Epis- 
copate was, as it were, concentrated in the See of Peter, 
from which it emanated ! 

This faith was that of the Holy See itself. Innocent L 
wrote thus to the bishops of Africa : " You are not igno- 
rant of what is due to the Apostolic See, whence proceed 
the Episcopate and all its authority. . . . When ques- 
tions on faith are agitated, I think that our brethren and 
fellow-bishops ought only, in regard to them, to refer to 
Peter, that is to say, to the author of their name and of 
their dignity.'' 9 c 

And, in his letter to Victor of Rouen, he says : "I shall 
commence, with the assistance of the apostle St. Peter, by 
whom the Apostolate and the Episcopate began in Jesus 
Christ." d 

St. Leo, faithful depositary of the same maxims, declares 
that all the gifts of Jesus Christ have only reached the 
bishops through Peter f . . . in order that from him, as 

* Per Petrum episcopis dedit Christus claves coelestium bono- 
rum. — Op. S. Greg. Nyss. edit. Paris, folio, torn. iii. p. 314. 

b Sedem Petri apostoli immundis pedibus . . usurpantes. . . . 
Judam quodammodo in Petri Cathedra . . statuunt. — Gildae 
sapientis presb. in Eccles. ordinem acris correptio. Biblioth. PP. 
Lugd. folio, torn. viii. p. 715. 

c Scientes quid apostolicse sedi, quum omnes hoc loco positi 
ipsum sequi desideremus apostolum, debeatur, a quo ipse episco- 
patus et tota auctoritas hujus nominis emersit. — Epist. xxix. 

Inn. I. ad Cone. Carth. No. I. inter epist. Rom. Pont. edit. D. 
Constant, col. 388. 

d Per quern (Petrum) et apostolatus et episcopatus in Christo 
cepit exordium. — Ibid. col. 747. 

e Nunquam nisi per ipsum (Petrum) dedit quidquid, aliis non 
negavit. — S. Leo. serm. iv. in ann. assumpt. Oper. edit. Bellar- 
ini, torn. ii. col. 16. 



CHAP. VI.] TESTIMONIES OF THE CHURCH. 



29 



from the head, all divine gifts should be diffused over the 
whole body. a 

I take pleasure in bringing together, at first, the pas- 
sages which establish the ancient faith on the great axiom 
that is so terrible to innovators. 

And now, taking up in order the most striking testi- 
monies that occur to me on the general question, I hear, in 
the first place, St. Cyprian declare, in the middle of the 
third century, that there were heresies and schisms in the 
Church, only because all eyes were not directed to the 
Priest of God, to the Pontiff who judges in the Church in 

THE PLACE OF JeSUS CHRIST. b 

In the fourth century, Pope Anastasius calls all Chris- 
tian people, " my people,' 9 and all Christian Churches, 
" members of my proper body? c 

And, a few years later, Pope St. Celestine called those 
same Churches, " our members!' d 

The Pope St. Julius writes to the partisans of Eusebius : 
"Do you not know that it is the custom to write to us, in the 
first place, and that here decision is given according to 
justice ? " 

. And some bishops of the Eastern Church, unjustly dis- 
possessed, having had recourse to this Pope, who restored 
them to their sees, as well as St. Anastasius, the historian 
who relates this fact, observes that the care of the whole 
Church belongs to the Pope, because of the dignity of his see* 
Towards the middle of the fifth century, St. Leo says to 

* Ut ab ipso (Petro) quasi quodam capite dona sua Telit in 
corpus onine manare. — S. Leo. epist. x. ad Episc. prov. Vienn. 
cap. i. col. 633. 

Je dois ces precieuses citations au savant auteur de la Tradition 
de l'Eglise sur l'Institution des Eveques, qui les a rassemblees 
avec beaucoup de gout (Introduction, p. xxxiii). 

b Neque aliunde haereses obortee sunt, aut nata sunt schismata, 
quam dum Sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur, nec unus in Ecclesia 
ad tempus judex vice Christi cogitatur. — S. Cyp. epist. lv. 

c Epist. Anast. ad Job. Hieron. apud Const. Epist. Decret. 
folio, p. 739.— Voy. les Vies des SS. trad, de l'Ang. d'Alban But- 
ler, par M. l'Abbe Godescard, 8vo. torn. iii. p. 689. 

d Ibid. 

e Epist. Rom. Pont. torn. i. Sozomene, liv. iii. cap. 8. 



so 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



the council of Chalcedon, reminding them of his letter to 
Flavian : " There is not question of discussing audaciously, 
but of believing ; my letter to Flavian, of happy memory, 
having fully and most clearly decided all that is of faith 
on the mystery of the incarnation. " a 

And Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, having been 
previously condemned by the Holy See, the legates — refus- 
ing to permit that he should take his seat among the 
bishops pending the judgment of the council — declare, to 
the commissaries of the emperor, that if Dioscorus does not 
quit the assembly, they will leave it themselves. b 

Among the six hundred bishops who heard this letter 
read, no voice protested ; and from this very council pro - 
ceeded with acclamation those celebrated words which have 
since continued to resound throughout the Church : " Peter 
has. spoken by the mouth of Leo, Peter always lives in 
his see." 

And in this same council, Lucentius, legate of the same 
Pope, said : " They have dared to hold a council without 
the authority of the Holy See, which was never done, 
and is not permitted." c 

This is the repetition of what Pope Celestine said not long 
beforehand to his legates, when setting out for the general, 
council of Ephesus : "If opinions are divided, remember 
that you are there to judge, not to dispute." d 

The Pope, as is well known, had himself convoked the 

a Unde, fratres charissimi, rejecta penitus audacia disputandi 
contra fidem divinitus inspiratam, vana errantium infidelitas 
conquiescat, nec liceat defendi quod non licet credi, &c. 

b Si ergo praecipit vestra magnificentia, aut ille egrediatur, aut 
nos eximus. — Sacr. Cone. torn. iv. 

c Fleury, Hist. Eccl. liv. xxviii. No. 11. Fleury, qui tra- 
vaillait a batons rompus, oublia ce texte et un autre tout sem- 
blable. (Liv. xii. No. 10.) Et il nous dit hardiment, dans son 
IV e disc, sur l'Hist. Eccles. No. 11 : Vous qui avez lu cette his- 
toire, vous n'y avez rien vu de semblable. M. le Docteur Mar- 
chetti prend la liberte de le citer lui-meme a lui-meme (Critica, 
&c. torn. i. art. sec. i. pp. 20 et 21). 

A Ad disputationem si ventum fuerit, vos de eorum sententiis 
dijudicare debetis, non subire certamen.— Voy. les Actes du 
Cone. 



CHAP. VI.] TESTIMONIES OF THE CHURCH. 31 

Council of Chalcedon, in the middle of the fifth century ; 
and meanwhile, the twenty-eighth canon having accorded 
the second place to the patriarchal See of Constantinople, 
St. Leo rejected it. In vain the Emperor Marcian, the 
Empress Pulcheria, and the Patriarch Anatolius address to 
him on this head the most pressing representations ; the 
Pope remains inflexible. He says that the third canon of 
the first council of C. P., which had previously attributed 
that place to the Patriarch of C. P., had never been sent to 
the Holy See. He quashes and declares null, by apostolical 
authority, the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon. The 
Patriarch submits, and agrees that the Pope was entitled 
to his obedience. a 

The Pope had himself previously convoked the second 
council of Ephesus ; and nevertheless he annulled it, in 
refusing it his approbation. b 

At the commencement of the sixth century, the Bishop 
of Patara, in Lycia, said to the Emperor Justinian : 
" There may be several sovereigns on the earth, but there 
is only one Pope over all the Churches of the universe." c 

In the seventh century, St. Maximus writes, in a work 
against the Monothelites : "If Pyrrhus pretends not to be 
a heretic, let him not lose his time exculpating himself 
before a multitude of people, but prove his innocence to the 
blessed Pope of the most holy Roman Church — that is, to 
the Apostolic See — to which belong government, authority, 
and power to bind and to loose over all the churches that 
are in the world, in all things and in every way." d 

a De la vient que le XXVIII 6 canon de Chalcedoine n'a jamais 
ete mis dans les collections, pas meme par les Orientaux : Ob 
Leonis reprobationem. — Marca. de Vet. Can. Coll. cap. iii. sect, 
xvii. 

Voyez encore M. le Docteur Marchetti, Appendice alia Critica 
di Fleury, torn. ii. p. 236. 

b Zacharia, Anti-Febronio, torn. ii. 8vo. cap. xi. No. 3. 

c Liberat. in Breviar. de Causa Nest, et Eutych. Paris, 1675, 
8vo. c. xxii. p. 775. 

d In omnibus et per omnia. S. Maxime, abbe de Chrysophe, 
etait ne a C. P., en 480. Ejus op. Greece etLatine. Paris, 1575, 
1 vol. fol. Biblioth. PP. torn. xi. p. 76. Fleury, apres avoir 



32 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



In the middle of this same century the bishops of Africa, 
met in council, said to Pope Theodore, in a synodal letter : 
" Our ancient laws have decided that, of all that is done, 
even in the most remote countries, nothing ought to be 
examined or admitted before your illustrious See have taken 
it into consideration." a 

At the end of the same century, the Fathers of the sixth 
general council (third of C. P.) receive in the fourth session 
the letter of Pope Agatho, which says to the council: 
" Never has the Apostolic Church strayed in the least from 
the path of truth. The whole Catholic Church, all the 
oecumenical councils, have always embraced its doctrine as 

that of THE PRINCE OF THE APOSTLES.*" 

And the Fathers reply : " Yes ! such is the true rule of 
faith. Religion has always remained unchangeable in the 
Apostolic See. We promise to separate henceforth from 
Catholic communion all who shall dare not to agree with 
that Church." The Patriarch of C. P. adds : " I have 
subscribed this profession of faith with my own hand. ,, b 

St. Theodore Studites said to Pope Leo III., at the be- 
ginning of the ninth century : " They have not feared to 

promis de dormer un extrait de ce qu'il y a de remarquable dans 
l'ouvrage de S. Maxime qui a fourni cette citation, passe en entier 
sous silence tout le passage qu'on vient de lire. Le Docteur Mar- 
chetti le lui reproche justement. (Critica, &c. torn. i. cap. ii. 

a Antiquis regulis sancitum est ut quidquid, quamvis in remotis 
vel in longinquis agatur provinciis, non prius tractandum vel ac- 
cipiendum sit, nisi ad notitiam almse Sedis vestrse fuisset deduc- 
tum. Fleury traduit : " Les trois primats ecrivirent en comnmn 
une lettre synodale au Pape Theodore, au nom de tous les eveques 
de leurs provinces, ou, apres avoir reconnu l'autorite du Saint- 
Siege, ils se plaignent de la nouveaute qui a paru a C. P." (Hist. 
Eccles. liv. xxxviii. No. 41.) La traduction ne sera pas trouvee 
servile. 

b Huic professioni subscripsi mea manu, &c. — Joh. episc. C. P. 
(Voy. le torn. v. des Cone. edit, de Coletti, col. 622.) Bossuet 
appelle cette declaration du VI e concile general, un formulaire 
approuve par toute l'Eglise Catholique (formulam tota Ecclesia 
comprobatam) ; le Saint-Siege, en vertu des promesses de son 
divin Fondateur, ne pouvant jamais faillir. — Defensio Cleri Gal- 
licani, lib. xv. cap. vii. 



CHAP. VI.] TESTIMONIES OE THE CHURCH. 33 

hold an heretical council of their own authority, without 
your permission ; whilst they could not hold even an ortho- 
dox one without your knowledge, according to ancient 
custom/' a 

Wetstein has made, in regard to the Churches of the 
East in general, an observation which Gibbon justly looks 
upon as very important : " If we consult ecclesiastical his- 
tory, we shall see that, so early as the fourth century, 5 
when there arose any controversy among the bishops of 
Greece, the party which desired to conquer, hastened to 
Rome, in order to pay court to the majesty of the Pontiff, 
and gain over to their side the Pope and the Latin Epis- 
copate. Thus did Athanasius proceed to Rome, well accom- 
panied, and remain there several years." c 

We may well pardon a Protestant pen the expression : 
party that desired to conquer ; the fact of Pontifical supre- 
macy is not, on that account, less clearly acknowledged. 
Never did the Eastern Church cease to recognize it. Why 
such frequent recourse to Rome ? Why that conclusive 
importance attached to its decisions ? Why that court 
paid to the majesty of the Pontiff? Why, in particular, 
do we behold the celebrated Athanasius repair to Rome, 
spend there several years, and, in order to plead there his 
cause, learn with extreme difficulty the Latin language ? 
Who ever saw the party that desired to conquer d paying 
court in the same fashion to the majesty of the other Pa- 

• Fleury, Hist. Eccl. torn. x. liv. xlv. No. 47. 

b That is, since the origin of the Church ; for it is from that 
time only that we see it acting externally as a publicly-constituted 
society, having its hierarchy, its laws, its customs, &c. Before 
its emancipation, Christianity was too much embarrassed to ad- 
mit of appeals in the regular course. It possessed all, neverthe- 
less, but only in germ. 

c Wetstein, Proleg. in Nov. Test. p. 19, cited by Gibbon, Hist, 
of the Decline, &c. 8vo. torn. iv. c. xxi. 

d As if every party were not anxious to conquer / But what 
Wetstein does not say, and what is nevertheless very obvious, 
is^that the orthodox party, which was sure of Rome, hastened 
thither, whilst the side of error, which would fain have conquered, 
but which conscience enlightened sufficiently in regard to what 
it had to expect at Rome, could scarcely venture to appear there. 

D 



34 



THE POPE. 



[book T. 



triarchs ? There is nothing so evident as the supremacy 
of Rome ; and the bishops of the East never ceased to con- 
fess it by their acts as well as by their writings. 

It were superfluous to accumulate authorities derived 
from the Latin Church. For us, the primacy of the Sove- 
reign Pontiff is precisely what the system of Copernicus is 
for astronomers. It is a fixed point, from which we start ; 
whoever hesitates on this point, understands nothing of the 
Christian religion. 

" No unity of the Church/' said St. Thomas, " without 
unity of faith ; . . . but no unity of faith without a su- 
preme head/' a 

The Pope and the Church are all one ! So said 
Francis of Sales ; b and Bellarmin had already said so, with 
a sagacity that will always be more admired, as men become 
wiser. " Do you know of what there is question, when we 
speak of the Sovereign Pontiff ? Christianity." c 

The question of clandestine marriages having been de- 
cided by a very great majority of votes in the Council of 
Trent, one of the legates of the Pope said as much to the 
assembled fathers, even after his colleagues had signed : 
u And I also, legate of the Holy See, give my appro- 
bation to the decree, provided it obtain that of our Holy 
Father." d 



CHAPTER VII. 

STRIKING TESTIMONIES OF THE GALLICAN CHURCH. 

In its general assembly of 1626, the clergy of France 
called the Pope "visible chief of the universal Church, 

a St. Thorn, adversus gentes, L. iv. cap. 76. 

b Epitres spirituelles de St. Francis de Sales. Lyon, 1634, liv. 
vii. ep. xlix. — Following St. Ambrose, who has said : " Where 
Peter is, there is the Church," — " Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia." — 
Ambr. in Ps. xl. 

c Bellarmin, De Summo Pontifice, in praef. 

d Ego pariter legatus Sedis apostolicae adprobo decretum si 
S. D. N. adprobetur. — Pallav. Hist. Concil. Trident, lib. xxxii. cap. 
iv. et ix. ; lib. xxiii. cap. ix. Zaccaria, Anti-Febronius vindica- 
tus, 8vo. torn. ii. dissert, iv. c. viii. pp. 187 et 188. 



CHAP. VII.] TESTIMONIES OF GALLICAN CHURCH. 35 

vicar of God on earth, bishop of bishops and of patri- 
archs ; in a word, successor of St. Peter, in whom the 
apostolate and the episcopate had their beginning, and on 
whom Jesus Christ founded his Church, in giving to him 
the keys of heaven, with infallibility of faith, which is 
known to have remained immoveable in his successors until 
our days/' a 

Towards the end of the same century, we have heard 
Bossuet repeat, after the fathers of Chalcedon : " Peter 
always lives in his chair/*' b 

He adds : " Feed my flock, and with my flock feed also 
the pastors, who, in regard to you, shall be sheep." c 

And in his celebrated sermon on unity, he pronounces, 
without hesitation : £C The Roman Church knows not he- 
resy ; she remains always a virgin Church . . . Peter is, 
in the persons of his successors, the foundation of the 
faithful."* 

And his friend, the great defender of Gallican maxims, 
affirms no less strongly : " The Roman Church has 
never erred We hope that God will never per- 

mit error to prevail in the Holy See of Rome, as has hap- 
pened in the other Apostolic Sees of Alexandria, Antioch, 
and Jerusalem, because God has said : ' I have prayed for 
you/&c." e 

In another place he admits " that the Pope is not less 
our superior in spiritual things than the king in temporal 
and even the bishops who subscribed the four articles of 
1682 accorded, nevertheless, to the Pope, in a circular 
letter addressed to all their colleagues, sovereign ecclesias- 
tical power? 

In the terrible days of the French Revolution, singular 

* This passage is to be seen everywhere. It may he read, if 
the Memoires du Clerge are not at hand, in the Remarques sur 
le Systeme Gallican, &c. 8vo. Mons, 1801, pp. 173 and 174. 

b Bossuet, Sermon on the Resurrect, part ii* 

c Id. ib. 

d Id. part i. 

e Fieri ry, Disc, on the Liberties of the Gallican Church. 
f Nouv. Opusc. de Fleury. Paris, 1807. 12mo. p. 111. Cor- 
rections et additions aux memes opuscules, p. 32. 

D 2 



36 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



homage is known to have been paid to this sound prin- 
ciple. 

In the year 1810 Bonaparte commissioned an ecclesias- 
tical council to answer certain questions on fundamental 
discipline, which were very delicate, considering the circum- 
stances in which the country was placed at the time. The 
answer of the deputies, in regard to the point I am at pre- 
sent discussing, is indeed remarkable : 

" A general council," say these deputies, " cannot be 
held without the head of the Church ; without him, it 
would not represent the universal Church. Fleury ex- 
pressly says so. a The authority of the Pope was always 
necessary for general councils." b 

In truth, a certain French routine leads the deputies to 
say, in the course of the discussion, "that a general coun- 
cil is the only authority in the Church above the Pope ; " 
but soon they are at one with themselves, and immediately 
add : " But it might happen that recourse to a council 
should become impossible, either by the Pope's refusal to 
recognize it as general, or, &c." 

In a word, from the dawn of Christianity to our own 
time, it will not be found that the practice has varied. 
The Popes have always considered themselves the supreme 
chiefs of the Church, and have always exercised the powers 
attaching to this position. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

JANSENIST EVIDENCE, TEXT FROM PASCAL, AND REFLEXIONS 
ON THE WEIGHT OF CERTAIN AUTHORITIES. 

The chain of authorities, of which I present only a selec- 
tion, is undoubtedly highly calculated to produce convic- 

* IV e Discours sur l'Histoire Eccl. What matters it whether 
Fleury has said so or not ? But Fleury is an idol of the French 
Pantheon. In vain would a thousand pens demonstrate that there 
is no historian less fit to be presented as an authority. Many of 
the French will never give up their Fleury l'a dit. 

b See the fragments relating to the ecclesiastical history of the 



CHAP. VIII.] 



JANSENIST EVIDENCE. 



37 



tion ; nevertheless, there is something still more striking, 
perhaps, and that is, the general feeling which results from 
an attentive reading of ecclesiastical history. There is 
there perceived, if I may so express myself, a real presence, 
in some sort, of the Sovereign Pontiff in all quarters of the 
Christian world. He is everywhere, he takes part in every- 
thing, he looks to all, as from all sides he is looked to. 
Pascal has well expressed this feeling: "We must no 3 
judge what the Pope is by certain words of the Fathers, . . 
but by the actions of the Church, and of the Fathers, and 
by the canons. The Pope is the first. What other is 
known to all ? What other is recognized by all, having 
power to exercise influence over the whole body, because 
he holds the chief branch which possesses influence every- 
where ? " a 

Pascal, with great reason, adds : " Important rule ! " b 
And, indeed, nothing is more important than to judge, not 
by such and such an isolated or doubtful fact, but by all 
the facts together ; not from such and such a sentence, 
fallen from such and such a writer, but by the whole of his 
writings, and the spirit which pervades them. 

We must, besides, never lose sight of the great rule, 
which, although it belong to all times and places, is too 
much neglected in discussing this subject : " That the tes- 
timony of a man can no longer be received, however great 
his merit, the moment he is even suspected of being under 
the influence of any passion capable of leading him astray."" 
The laws reject a judge or a witness that falls under their 
suspicion on this ground, or even in consideration simply 
of relationship. The most exalted personage, the most 
universally venerated character, is not insulted by this 

first years of the nineteenth century. Paris, 1814, 8vo. p. 115. 
I inquire not here what either the one or the other power may 
have to clear up with such and such members of this commission. 
Every man of honour owes his sincere applause to the noble and 
Catholic intrepidity which dictated these answers. 




Paris, 1803. 8vo. tome ii. II e partie, art. 



xvii. No. XCII. et XCIV. p. 118. 
b Ibid. No. XCIII. 



38 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



legal suspicion. In saying to any man whatsoever : " You 
are a man,"" we fail not in respect to him. 

When Pascal defends his sect against the Pope, it is as 
if he spoke not ; we must listen to him when he bears 
to the Pope's supremacy the wise testimony that has just 
been quoted. 

That a small and select number of bishops, excited and 
in dread of authority, should take the liberty to prescribe 
limits to the sovereignty which has a right to judge them, 
is unfortunate, but nothing more ; we cannot even recog- 
nize their existence. 

But when personages of the same order, legitimately as- 
sembled, pronounce calmly and in full liberty the decision 
laid before the reader in the last chapter, on the rights and 
the authority of the Holy See, a we truly hear the illustrious 
body of which they style themselves the representatives ; it 
is, in reality, that body ; and when, some years later, other 
bishops thunder against what they so justly call the ser- 
vitudes oe the Gallican Church, it is still that distin- 
guished body we hear and ought to believe. b 

When St. Cyprian says, speaking of certain mischief- 
makers of his time, " They dare address themselves to the 
chair of St. Peter — to that sovereign Church, in which 
sacerdotal dignity took its origin ; . . . they know not that 
the Romans are men to whom error has no access," c we 
hear in reality St. Cyprian, an irreproachable witness of the 
faith of his age. 

But when the adversaries of the Pontifical monarchy 
quote, usque ad nauseam, the sallies of this same St. Cy- 
prian against Pope Stephen, they depict miserable hu- 
manity, instead of presenting to us sound tradition. And 
this is precisely the case with Bossuet. Who ever knew, 

a See note a to chap. vii. 

b Servitutes potius quam libertates. — Vid. tome ii. de la Coll. 
des Proces-verb. du Clerge, piec. just. No. 1. 

c Navigare audent ad Petri cathedram atque ad Ecclesiam 
principalem, unde dignitas sacerdotal is orta est . . . nec cogitare 
eos esse Romanos ad quos perfidia habere non possit accessum. 
— St. Cyprian, ep. lv. 



CHAP. IX.] 



PKOTESTANT EVIDENCES. 



39 



better than he, the rights of the Roman Church, and who 
ever spoke of them with more truth and eloquence ? And 
nevertheless this same Bossuet, swayed by a passion he 
perceived not in the depths of his heart, dreaded not to 
write to the Pope, with the pen of Louis XIV., "that if 
his Holiness prolonged that affair on grounds that were not 
understood, the king knew what he should have to do ; and 
that he hoped the Pope would not reduce him to such dis- 
tressing extremities/' a 

St. Augustine, candidly admitting the faults of St. Cy- 
prian, " hopes that the martyrdom of this holy personage 
has expiated them all b let us hope, also, that a long life 
wholly dedicated to the service of religion, and so many 
noble works that have added lustre to the Church as well 
as to France, will have obliterated some faults, or perhaps, 
rather, some involuntary impulses, quos humana pariim 
camt natura. 

But let us never forget the advice of Pascal, that we 
should pay no attention to certain words of the Fathers, 
nor, on still better grounds, to other authorities, which are 
of less value even than some fugitive expressions of the 
Fathers, but consider with attention actions and canons, c 
holding always to the mass of authorities ; weeding out, as 
is but just, such as circumstances render null or suspected. 
Every upright mind will understand the force of my last 
observation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

PROTESTANT EVIDENCES. 

The Catholic monarchy must be evident indeed, and 
equally so the advantages resulting from it, since it would 
be possible to compose a book of the testimonies which 
Protestants have borne to the truth no less than to the 

a Hist, de Boss. torn. iii. 1. x. No. 18, p. 33. 
b Martyrii falce purgatum. 
c Pascal, as above. 



40 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



excellence of that system ; but on this point, as well as on 
on that of Catholic authorities, I must restrict myself to 
the narrowest limits. 

Let us begin, as is but just, with Luther, from whose pen 
have fallen the following remarkable words : — 

" I give thanks to Jesus Christ, because he has, by a 
great miracle, preserved upon the earth one only Church 
(Eglise unique), ... so as that she has never gone astray 
from the true faith by any decree." a 

" The Church," says Melancthon, " must have guides 
to maintain order, to have an eye over those who are called 
to the ecclesiastical ministry, and over the teaching of 
priests, and to judge in ecclesiastical cases ; so that, if 
there were not such bishops, it would be necessary to 

MAKE THEM. THE MONARCHY OF THE POPE WOuld Con- 
tribute much to preserve among different nations agreement 
in doctrine/' b 

Next comes Calvin. " God," says he, " has placed the 
throne of his religion in the centre of the world, and has 
there established one Pontiff, towards whom all are obliged ' 
to turn their eyes, in order to maintain themselves more 
strongly in unity." c 

The learned, the wise, the virtuous Grotius, candidly 
declares "that, without the primacy of the Pope, there 
would no longer be any means of putting an end to disputes, 
and of determining points of faith." d 

a Luther, cite dans l'Histoire des Variations, liv. i. No. 21, &c. 

b Melancthon expresses himself in an admirable manner when 
he says : " The monarchy of the Pope," &c. — Bossuet, Hist, de 
Var. liv. v. sec. 24. 

c Cultus sui sedem in medio terrae collocavit, ill! unum anti- 
stitem prsefecit quem omnes respicerent, quo melius in unitate 
continerentur. — Calv. Inst. vi. sec. 11. 

I am quite prepared, with Calvin, to look upon Rome as the 
centre of the earth. This city has as good a right, I trow, as that 
of Delphos, to be called umbilicus terrae. 

If d Sine tali primatu exire a controversiis non poterat, sicut ho- 
die apud Protestantes, &c. — Grotius Votum pro pace Eccles. 
art. vii. Oper. torn. iv. Bale, 1731, p. 658. 

A Protestant lady has commented on this text with much wit 
and judgment : " The right of examining what one believes, is 



CHAP. IX.] PROTESTANT EVIDENCES. 



41 



Casaubon has made no difficulty in acknowledging " that 
in the eyes of every man, well informed in regard to eccle- 
siastical history, the Pope was the instrument God made 
use of to preserve the deposit of faith in all its integrity 
during so many ages." a 

According to the remark of Puffendorf : " It is not 
allowed to doubt that the government of the Church is 
monarchical, and necessarily monarchical, democracy and 
aristocracy being excluded by the very nature of things, 
as absolutely incapable of maintaining order and unity 
amidst the agitation of minds and the fury of parties." b 

With remarkable wisdom, he adds : " The suppression 
of the authority of the Pope has thrown into the world 
innumerable seeds of discord ; for, there being no longer 
sovereign authority to terminate the disputes which arose 
on all hands, the Protestants were seen divided amongst 
themselves, and tearing their hearts with their own hands." c 

What he says of councils is not less reasonable : " That 
the council" says he, " is above the Pope, is a proposition 
which must carry the assent of all who hold to reason and 
Scripture ; d but that those who consider the See of Rome 
the centre of all churches, and the Pope the oecumenical 
bishop, adopt also the same opinion, is what cannot but 
appear somewhat more than moderately absurd ; for the 
proposition which places the council above the Pope, esta- 
blishes a veritable aristocracy, and nevertheless the Roman 
Church is a monarchy." e 

the foundation of Protestantism. The first reformers did not so 
understand it. They believed they could place the Hercules' pil- 
lars of the human mind at the limits of their own knowledge ; 
hut they were wrong in hoping that men would submit to their 
decisions as infallible, since they rejected all authority of this 
kind in the Catholic religion." — De V Allemagne, par Mad. de 
Stael, IV e partie, chap. ii. 

a Nemo peritus rerum Ecclesiae ignorat opera Rom. Pont, per 
multa secula Deum esse usum in conservanda . . . fidei doc- 
trina. — Casaub. Exerc. xv. in Annal. bar. 

b Puffendorf, de Monarch. Pont. Rom. 

c Furere Protestantes in sua ipsorum viscera cceperunt. — Ibid. 
4 By these words, Puffendorf means to designate Protestants. 
e . . Id quidem non parum absurditatis habet, quum status 



42 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



Mosheim, examining the sophisms of the Jansenists, 
" that the Pope is indeed the superior of each Church by 
itself, but not of all the Churches united;" Mosheim, I say, 
forgets his anti- Catholic fanaticism, and allows himself to 
be guided by sound logic, so far as to reply : " We might 
hold, with as much reason, that the head presides indeed 
over each member in particular, but not at all oyer the 
body, which is all the members joined together ; or that a 
king really commands the towns, villages, and fields which 
compose a province, but not the province itself/' a 

An Anglican doctor has made for his Church the follow- 
ing very plain and pressing argument, which has become 
famous : " If the supremacy of an archbishop (of Canter- 
bury) be necessary to maintain in one body the whole Angli- 
can Church, how should not the supremacy of the Sovereign 
Pontiff be necessary to maintain in unity the universal 
Church ? " b 

Remarkable, too, is the avowal of the candid Seckenberg, 
in regard to the administration of the Popes : " There is 
not/' says he, " a single instance in all history of a Sove- 
reign Pontiff having persecuted those who, attached to 
their legitimate rights, undertook not to overstep their 
limits." c 

It would be easy to quote a multitude of such texts, but 
I must be brief. I shall conclude by an interesting cita- 
tion, which is not so well known as it deserves to be, and 
which may stand in lieu of a thousand others. The author 

Ecclesiae monarchicus sit. — Puffendorf, de Habitu Religionis 
Christ, ad Vitam civilem, sec. 38. 

a Id tarn mihi scitum videtur, ac si quis affirmaret membra 
quidem a capite regi, &c. — Mosheim, torn. i. Diss, ad Hist. Ec- 
cles. p. 542. 

b Si necessarium est ad unitatem in Ecclesia (Angliae) tuen- 
dam unum archiepiscopum aliis praeesse ; cur non pari ratione 
toti Ecclesiae Dei unus preeerit archiepiscopus ? — Cartwright in 
defens. Wirgisti. 

c Jure affirmari poterit ne exemplum quidem esse in omni 
rerum memoria ubi Pontifex processerit adversus eos qui juri- 
bus suis intenti, ultra limites vagari, in animum non induxerunt 
suum. — Henr. Christ. Seckenberg, Method. Jurispr. addit. iv. de 
Libertate Eccles. Germ. sec. 3. 



/ 



CHAP. IX.] 



PROTESTANT EVIDENCES. 



43 



of it is a minister of the holy gospel ; I am not privileged 
to name him, since he has thought proper to remain anony- 
mous ; but I am nowise embarrassed in not knowing to 
whom I should address my esteem : 

" I cannot refrain from saying that the first sacrilegious 
hand which touched the censer was that of Luther and 
Calvin, when, under the name of Protestantism and reform, 
they brought about a schism in the Church — a fatal schism, 
which has only carried by an absolute rupture those modi- 
fications which Erasmus would have introduced in a more 
gentle way by the weapon of ridicule, which he handled 
so well. 

" Yes ! the reformers, in ringing the tocsin upon Rome 
and the Pope, levelled the first blow at the ancient and 
venerable colossus of the Roman hierarchy, and, directing 
the minds of men to the discussion of religious dogmas, 
prepared them for discussing also the principles of sove- 
reignty, and thus undermined with the same hand the altar 
and the throne. 

" The time is come to build anew the substructure of 
that magnificent palace, destroyed erewhile with so much 
noise. . . . And now, perhaps, likewise is the time to 
bring back to the bosom of the Church the Greeks, the 
Lutherans, the Anglicans, and the Calvinists. ... It 
belongs to you, Roman Pontiff ... to show yourself the 
father of the faithful, in restoring its pomp to divine wor- 
ship, to the Church its unity ; a it belongs to you, successor 
of St. Peter, to re-establish in unbelieving Europe religion 
and sound morals. . . . Those same English people who 
the first withdrew from your sway, are to-day your most 
zealous defenders. That patriarch who at Moscow endea- 
voured to rival your power, is not perhaps very far from 
recognizing you b . . . Avail yourself, then, Holy Father, 

* Always the same avowal : Without Mm no unity. 

b The author may have had legitimate hopes with regard to 
the English, who should, indeed, according to all appearances, 
be the first to return to unity ; but how grievously is he not 
mistaken in the case of the Greeks, who are much farther re- 
moved from the truth than the English people ! Moreover, for 



44 THE POPE. [BOOK I. 

avail yourself of the favourable time and favourable dis- 
positions. Temporal power is escaping you, resume the 
spiritual ; and making, in regard to dogma, the sacri- 
fices circumstances demand, unite with the sages whose 
pen and whose voice command the nations ; restore to 
incredulous Europe a simple a but uniform religion, and, 
above all, a pure morality — and you will be proclaimed 
the worthy successor of the apostles. b " 

Let us overlook those remains of antiquated prejudices, 
which can scarcely ever be eradicated from the soundest 
heads in which they have once taken root. Neither let 
us heed that remark on temporal power escaping from the 
Sovereign Pontiff, as if it had been destined never to 
be re-established ; nor that advice to resume spiritual 
power, as if it had ever been suspended ; nor that still 
more extraordinary counsel, to make, in regard to dogma y 
the sacrifices which circumstances demand : that is to say, 
in terms perfectly synonymous, to become Protestants, and 
so make an end of dogmas. ... On the other hand, 
what wisdom ! what logic ! what sincere, what precious 
avowals ! what an admirable effort against national pre- 
judices ! In reading this passage, we call to mind the 
maxim : 

" From an enemy, even, we may take lessons ; 99 

if, however, we can call enemy one whom an enlightened 
conscience has brought so near to ourselves. 

a century back there has no longer been a patriarch at Moscow. 
In fine, the archbishop or metropolitan who filled the see of 
Moscow in 1797 was, beyond doubt, of all the bishops who have 
borne the rebel mitre, the least disposed to carry it once more 
within the circle of unity. 

a How I should have desired the estimable author had told 
us, in a note, what he means by a simple religion ! If, per- 
chance, it was a corrected and diminished religion, the Pope would 
not be much inclined to enter into his view. 

b De la Ne'cessite' d'un Culte Public. L , 1797, 8vo. (Con- 
clusion). 



CHAP. X.J 



RU3S0-GREEK TESTIMONIES. 



45 



CHAPTER X. 

TESTIMONIES OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH, AND, THROUGH IT, OF 
THE GREEK DISSENTING CHURCH. 

The luminous evidences — all the more valuable that 
they are little known — which the Russian Church pro- 
vides us with against heresy on the important question 
of the Pope's supremacy, will not be read without extreme 
interest. Her spiritual books present, on this subject, 
confessions so clear, so express, so powerful, that it is dif- 
ficult to understand how the science which consents to 
pronounce them can refuse to yield to them. a We must 
not be surprised if these ecclesiastical books have not yet 
been cited. Cumbrous by their form and weight, written 
in Sclavonic — a language which, though very rich and 
very beautiful, is as foreign as Sanscrit to our eyes and ears 
— printed in repulsive characters, buried in the churches, 
and turned over only by men wholly unknown to the world : 
it is quite obvious why this mine has never until now been 
searched ; it is time to dive into it. 

To proceed, then. The Russian Church goes so far as 
to sing the following hymn : " ! St. Peter, prince of the 
apostles ! apostolic primate ! immovable rock of faith, in 
recompense of thy confession, eternal foundation of the 
Church ; pastor of the speaking flock ; b bearer of the keys 
of heaven ; chosen from among all the apostles to be, after 
Jesus Christ, the first foundation of the Holy Church — 

* I have learned that for some time there are met with in 
trade at Moscow, as well as at St. Petersburg, some copies of 
these books, mutilated in the most striking places ; but nowhere 
are these decisive texts more legible than in the copies from 
which they have been torn out. 

b Pastuir Slovesnago stada (loquentis gregis), that is to 
say, men, according to the spirit of the Sclavonian language. We 
have here the speaking animal, or the speaking soul of the He- 
brews, and the articulating man of Homer. All these expres- 
sions of the ancient languages are very exact : man being man, 
that is, an intellectual being only by speech. 



46 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



rejoice! rejoice! never^o-be-shaken pillar of the orthodox 
faith ! chief of the apostolic college ! " a 

She adds : " Prince of the apostles, thou hast quitted 
all, and hast followed the Master, saying, ' I will die with 
thee ; with thee I shall live a life of happiness. Thou 
hast been the first bishop of Rome, the honour and the 
glory of the very great city. On thee has the Church 
been consolidated/ " b 

The same Church refuses not to repeat in its language 
the words of St. John Chrysostom : " God said to Peter, 
' You are Peter/ and he gave to him this name because 
upon him, as on a solid rock, Jesus Christ founded his 
Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
her, for the Creator himself having laid the foundation, 
which he confirms by faith, what power could make oppo- 
sition to her f " c 

What, then, could I add to the praises of this apostle, 
and what can be imagined beyond the discourse of our 

a Akaphisti sedmitchnii (Prieres hebdomadaires). N.B. It 
has not been possible to procure the original of this book. The 
citation is taken from another book, but which is very exact, 
and which has never deceived in any of the citations that have 
been borrowed from it and have been verified. According to this 
latter book, the Akaphisti sedmitchnii were printed at Mo- 
hiloff in 1698. The kind of hymn here alluded to bears the 
Greek name of ip/xog (i.e. series) ; it belongs to the office of 
Thursday, in the octave of the feast of the apostles. 

b Mineia mesatchnaia (Vies des Saints pour chaque mois). 
They are divided into twelve volumes, one for each month of the 
year ; or in four, one for three months. To the Lives of the Saints 
the last editions add Irymns and other pieces, so that the whole 
may be named more exactly the Office of the Saints. — Moscow, 
1813, fol. 30th June. Recueil en l'honneur des saints apotres. 

c St. Chrysostom translated into Sclavonic, in the book of rites 
of the Russian Church, entitled Pholog. (Moscow, 1677, fol.) 
This is an abridgment of the lives of the saints whose office is 
celebrated every day in the year. There are in it, also, sermons, 
panegyrics of St. Chrysostom, and other Fathers of the Church, 
sentences extracted from their own writings, &c. The quotation 
relating to this note belongs to the office of the 29th June. It is 
taken from the 3rd Sermon of St. John Chrysostom for the fes- 
tival of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul. 



CHAP. X.] RUSSO-GREEK TESTIMONIES. 



47 



Saviour, who calls Peter happy, who gives him the name 
of Peter {rock), and declares that on this rock he will 
build his Church ? a Peter is the rock and the foun- 
dation of faith ; b to this Peter, the supreme apostle, the 
Lord himself has given authority, saying to him : " I 
give to thee the keys of heaven/' &c. What, then, shall 
we say to Peter? Peter, object of the affection of 
the Church, light of the universe, unspotted dove, prince 
of the apostles, c source of orthodoxy. d 

The Russian Church, which speaks in such magnificent 
terms of the prince of the apostles, is not less eloquent 
in regard to his successors. I shall adduce a few ex- 
amples. 

First and Second Centuries. — " After the death of 
St. Peter and his two successors, Clement held with wis- 
dom at Rome the helm of the bark, which is the Church 
of Jesus Christ." e And in a hymn, in honour of this 
same Clement, the Russian Church says : " Martyr of 
Jesus Christ, disciple of Peter, thou didst imitate his 
heavenly virtues, and thus showedst thyself the true heir 
of his throne/' f 

Fourth Century. — She (Russian Church) thus ad- 
dresses Pope St. Sylvester : " Thou art the chief of the 
sacred council ; thou hast rendered illustrious the throne 
of the prince of the apostles ; g divinely appointed chief 

a St. John Chrysostom, ibid, second sermon. 

b Trio dpostinaia (Ritualis liber quadragesimalis). This 
book contains the offices of the Russian Church from Septuage- 
sima Sunday till Holy Saturday. (Moscow, 1811, folio.) The 
passage quoted is taken from the office of Thursday in the second 
week. 

c Pholog (ubi supra), 29th June. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd discourse 
of St. John Chrysostom. 

d Natchalo pravoslavita. Le Pholog, according to St. 
John Chrysostom. Ibid. 29th June. 

e Mineia mesatchnaia. Office of 15th January. Kondak 
(hymn), Stroph. ii. 

f Minei tchethiki. This is the lives of the saints by Demitri 
RostofsM, who is a saint of the Russian Church. — Moscow, 1815. 
25th Nov. Life of St. Clement, pope and martyr. 

* Mineia mesatchnaia, 29th Nov. Hymn viii. ipfiog. 



48 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



of the holy bishops, thou hast confirmed the divine doc- 
trine, thou hast shut the impious mouth of heretics/' a 

Fifth Century. — To Pope Leo she says: "What 
name shall I give thee to-day? Shall I call thee the 
wonderful herald and the firm support of truth ? — the 
venerable chief of the supreme council ? b — the successor to 
the sovereign throne of St. Peter ? — the heir of the invin- 
cible Peter, and the successor to his empire ? " c 

Seventh Century. — Pope St. Martin she thus ad- 
dresses : " Thou wilt honour the divine throne of Peter ; 
and, by maintaining the Church on this immoveable rock, 
thou hast made thy name illustrious/ most glorious master 
of all orthodox doctrine ; faithful organ of the sacred pre- 
cepts, 6 around whom the priesthood all united, together 
with the whole orthodox world, to anathematize heresy/'' f 

Eighth Century. — In the life of St. Gregory II., an 
angel says to the holy pontiff : " God has called thee to 
be the sovereign bishop of his Church, and the successor 
of Peter, the prince of the apostles." g 

Elsewhere the same Church holds up to the admiration 
of the faithful the letter of this holy pontiff to the Emperor 
Leo the I saurian, on the subject of the worship of images : 
" Wherefore, as invested with the power and the sove- 
reignty (godspodstvo) of St. Peter, we forbid," &c. &c. h 

And in the same collection which has supplied the pre- 
ceding text, there is a passage from St. Theodore Studites, 
who said to Pope Leo III. " thou supreme pastor of 

a Mineia mesatchnaia. 2nd Jan. St. Sylvester, pope. — 
Hymn ii. 

b Ibid. 18th Feb. St. Leo, pope. Hymn viii. — Ibid, extract 
from 4th d sc. at the Council of Chalcedon. 

c Ibid. 18th Feb. Hymns viii. Strophes 1st and 7th, ip{M>£. 
d Ibid. 14th April. St. Martin, pope. Hymn vii. ipfioqT 
e Pholog. 10th April. Stichiri (Cantiq.), Hymn viii. 
f Pholog. 14th April. St. Martin, pope. 

* Minei tchetiikh. 12th March. St. Gregory, pope. 

h Sobornic. fol. Moscow, 1804. — This is a collection of ser- 
mons and epistles of the Fathers of the Church, suited for the use 
of the Russian Church. 

* The same Theodore Studites quoted above. 



CHAP. X.] RUSSO-GREEK TESTIMONIES. 



40 



the Church that is under heaven, aid us in the utmost 
danger ; fill the place of Jesus Christ. Stretch out to us 
a protecting hand, in order to aid our Church of Constan- 
tinople ; show thyself the successor of the first pontiff who 
bore thy name. He punished the heresy of Eutyches ; 
punish, in thy turn, that of the Iconoclasts. a Give ear 
to our prayers, thou chief and prince of the apostolate, 
chosen by God himself to be the pastor of the speaking 
flock ; b for thou art really Peter, since thou holdest and 
dost render brilliant the see of Peter. To thee Jesus 
Christ said : ' Confirm thy brethren.' Behold, then, the 
time and the place to exercise thy privileges ; aid us, 
since God has given thee power to do so, for it is to that 
end thou art the prince of all." c 

Not satisfied with thus establishing the Catholic doc- 
trine by the clearest confessions, the Eussian Church is 
pleased, moreover, to quote facts, which place in its 
brightest light the application of the doctrine in question. 

Thus, for instance, it celebrates Pope St. Celestine, 
" who, showing himself firm, both by his words and ac- 
tions, in the way traced out, to him by the apostles, de- 
posed Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, after having 
brought to light in his letters the blasphemies of that 
heretic." d 

And Pope St. Agapetus, "who deposed the heretic An- 
timus, patriarch of Constantinople, declared him anathema, 
then consecrated Mennas, whose doctrine was irreproach- 
able, and raised him to the see of Constantinople/' e 

Likewise Pope St. Martin, "who rushed like a lion 
against the wicked, separated from the Church of Jesus 
Christ ; Cyrius, patriarch of Alexandria ; Sergius, patri- 
arch of Constantinople ; Pyrrhus, and all their adherents." f 

a Sobornic. Life of St. Theodore Studites. 11th Nov. 
b Vid. sup. chap. vi. 

c Sobornic. Letter of St. Theodore Studites, book ii. epist. 12. 

d Pholog. 8th April. St. Celestine, pope. 

6 Ibid. St. Agapet. pope. — Article repeated 25th August. St. 
Mennas (or Minnas) according to the modern Greek pronuncia- 
tion represented by Sclavonian orthography. 

'Mineia mesatchnaia. 14th April. St. Martin, pope. 
E 



50 



THE POPE. 



[book n 



If it be asked how a Church which recites such testi- 
monies daily, nevertheless obstinately denies the supre- 
macy of the Pope, I reply, that men are led to-day by 
what they did yesterday ; that it is not easy to obliterate 
ancient liturgies ; and that they are followed by habit, 
even whilst systematically contradicted ; that, in fine, the 
blindest at once, and most incurable prejudices, are those 
of religion. All this considered, we are not entitled to be 
astonished at anything. The testimonies, meanwhile, are 
all the more precious, that they strike at the same time 
the Greek Church, mother of the Russian, which has ceased 
to be her daughter. a But the rites of the liturgical books 
being the same, a moderately vigorous man can easily 

a It is not uncommon to hear confounded in conversation the 
Russian and Greek Churches. There is nothing, however, more 
obviously erroneous. The former was indeed, at its origin, a pro- 
vince of the Greek Patriarchate. But there happened to it what 
must necessarily happen to every church that is not Catholic, 
which by the force of circumstances alone will end always by 
becoming wholly dependent on its temporal sovereign. There is 
much said about Anglican supremacy; nevertheless it possesses 
nothing peculiar to England ; for it is impossible to adduce an 
instance of a separated church that is not subject to the absolute 
dominion of the civil power. Among Catholics even have we not 
seen the Gallican Church humbled, fettered enslaved, by the 
great magistracies, just in proportion as it unwisely allowed itself 
to be emancipated from the Pontifical power ? There is no longer, 
then, a Greek Church out of Greece ; and the Church of Russia 
is no more Greek than it is Coptic or Armenian. It stands alone 
in the Christian world, not less a stranger to the Pope, whom it 
does not acknowledge, than to the separated Greek Patriarch, who 
would be considered a fool if it entered into his mind to send any 
kind of order to St. Petersburgh. The shadow, even, of all co- 
ordinate authority in religion has disappeared as regards the Rus- 
sians towards their patriarch. The Church of this great people, 
wholly isolated, has ceased even to have a spiritual chief possess- 
ing a place in ecclesiastical history. As to the " Holy Synod ," we 
ought to profess, in regard to each of its members taken singly, 
the highest imaginable consideration ; but, beholding them in a 
body, we can only see the national consistency rendered complete, 
by the presence of a civil representative of the prince, who exer- 
cises over this ecclesiastical committee precisely the same supre- 
macy that the sovereign exercises over the Church in general. 



CHAP. X.] TESTIMONY OF THE GREEK CHURCH. 51 

pierce both Churches, though no longer united, with the 
same blow. 

We have seen, besides, among the great number of tes- 
timonies accumulated in the preceding chapters, those 
which relate to the Greek Church in particular ; its sub- 
mission to the Holy See is one of those historical facts 
which can by no means be called in question. There is 
even this peculiar to that Church (its schism not having 
been an affair of doctrine, but of mere pride), it ceased 
not to pay homage to the supremacy of the Sovereign 
Pontiff ; thus condemning itself until the moment of its 
separation — so that the dissenting Church, dying to unity, 
confessed it nevertheless with its last breath. 

Thence did Photius address himself to Pope Nicholas I. 
in 859. in order to have his election confirmed ; and the 
Emperor Michael asks this same Pope to send legates to 
reform the Church of Constantinople ; and Photius himself 
persists in his endeavours to seduce John VIII., in order 
to obtain the confirmation which was wanting to him. a 

Thus the clergy of Constantinople in a body had recourse 
to Pope Stephen in 886, solemnly acknowledged his supre- 
macy, and begged of him, conjointly with the Emperor 
Leo, a dispensation for the patriarch Stephen, brother of 
that Emperor, who had been ordained by a schismatic}' 

Thus the Roman Emperor, who had created his son 
Theophilactus patriarch at the age of sixteen years, had 
recourse in 993 to Pope John XII., in order to obtain the 
necessary dispensations, and to ask of him at the same time 
that the pallium should be granted by him to the patriarchy 
or rather to the Church of Constantinople, once for all, 
without its being necessary henceforth that each patriarch 
should beg it of him in his turn. 

n Maimbourg, Hist, du Schisme des Grecs, torn. i. liv. i. an 
859. Ibid. The Pope says in his letter, that, having power and 
authority to dispense with the decrees of councils, and of the 
Popes his predecessors, for good reasons, &c. — Joh. Epist. cxcix* 
cc. and ccii. torn. ix. cone. edit. Par. 

b Ibid. liv. iii. an 1054. 

c Ibid. liv. iii. an 933, p. 256. 

E 2 



52 THE POPE. [BOOK T. 

Thus, also, the Emperor Basil, in the year 1019, still 
sent ambassadors to Pope John XX., in order to obtain of 
him, in favour of the patriarch of Constantinople, the title 
of oecumenical patriarch in regard to the East, as the Pope 
enjoyed this title over all the earth? 

Strange inconsistency of the human mind ! The Greeks 
acknowledged the sovereignty of the Eoman Pontiff in 
asking favours of him ; then they severed themselves from 
it, because it resisted them ; thus they still acknowledged 
it, expressly admitting themselves to be rebels in declaring 
themselves independent. 

St. Francis of Sales will conclude this chapter. It oc- 
curred to him ingeniously to collect the different titles 
which ecclesiastical antiquity bestowed upon the Sovereign 
Pontiffs and their see. This catalogue is piquant, and 
cannot fail to make a powerful impression on right-thinking 
minds. 

The Pope, then, is called : — 

The Most Holy Bishop of the Catholic 

Church. Council of Soissons of 300 Bishops. 

The Most Holy and Most Happy Patriarch. Idem. 
The Most Happy Lord. " St. Aug., Epist. 95. 

The Universal Patriarch. St. Leo, Pope, Epist. 62. 

The Chief of the Church of the World. Innoc. ad PP. of Counc. Milev. 
The Bishop raised to the highest Apostolic 

dignity. St. Cyp., Epist. 3, 12. 

The Father of Fathers. Council of Chulced., Sess. iii. 

The Sovereign Pontiff of Bishops. Idem, in prcef. 

The Sovereign Priest. Council of Chulced., Sess. xvi. 

The Prince of Priests. Stephen, Bishop of Carthage. 

The Prefect of the House of God and the 

Guardian of the Vineyard of the Lord. Council of Carthage, Epistle to Damasus. 
The Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Confirmer 

of the Faith of Christians. St. Jerome, proef. in Evang. ad Damasum. 

The High Priest. Valentinian, and with him all antiquity. 

The Sovereign Pontiff. Council of Chulced., in Epist. ad Tkeod. 

irnpei'. 

The Prince of Bishops. Ibid. 

The Heir of the Apostles. St. Bernard, lib. de consid. 

Abraham, by the Patriarchate. St. Ambrose, in 1 Tim. iii. 

Melchisedeck, through holy orders. Cone, de Chalc, Epist. ad Leonem. 

Moses, by the authority of his office. St. Bernard, Epist. 190. 

Samuel, by his jurisdiction. Id. ibid, et in lib. de consid. 

Peter, by his power. Ibid. 

Christ, by unction. Ibid. 

The Pastor of the Fold of Jesus Christ. Id. lib. 2 de consid. 

The Key-bearer of the House of God. Id. ibid. ch. 8. 

The Pastor of all Pastors. Ibid. 

The Pontiff called to the fulness of power. Ibid. 

St. Peter was the mouth of Jesus Christ. St. Chrysostome, horn. ii. in divers, serm. 

a Maimbourg, liy. iii. an 933, p. 271. 



CHAP. X.] DOCTRINE OF ST. FRANCIS OF SALES. 53 



The mouth, and the Chief of the Apostolate. Origen, horn. lv. in Matth. 

The Chair, and the Principal Church. St. Cyprian, Epist. lv. ad Cornel. 

The origin of sacerdotal unity. Id. Epist. iii. 2. 

The bond of unity. Id. ibid. iv. 2. 

The Church in which resides the principal 

power, potentior principalitas). Id. ibid. iii. 8. 

The Church, root and mother of all others. St. Anaclet., Pope, Epist. ad omn. Episc. 

et Fideles. 

The seat on which the Lord hath founded 

the Universal Church. St. Damasus, Epist. ad univ. Episc. 

The cardinal point, and the Chief of all the 

Churches. St. Marcellin, R. Epist. ad Episc. Antioch. 

The refuge of Bishops. Council of Alex., Epist. ad Felic. 

The supreme Apostolic seat. St. Athanasius. 

The presiding Church. The Emperor Justin., in lib. 8, eod. de 

sum. Trinit. 

The Supreme See, which cannot be judged 
by any other. St. Leo, in nat. SS. Apostolorum, 

The Church set over and preferred to all 
others. Victor d'Utique, in lib. de perfect. 

The First of all Sees. St. Prosper, in lib. de ingrat. 

The Apostolic Fountain. St. Ignatius, Epist. ad Rom. in subscrip. 

The most sure Haven of all Catholic com- 
munion. Council of Rome, under St. Gelasius. 

The bringing together of this variety of appellations is a 
task altogether worthy of the luminous mind by which the 
great Bishop of Geneva was distinguished. We have al- 
ready seen what a high idea he entertained of the Roman 
supremacy. Meditating on the numerous analogies of the 
two Testaments, he insisted on the authority of the high 
priest of the Hebrews. " Ours, also/' says St. Francis of 
Sales, u bears on his breast the urim and the thummim, 
that is, doctrine and truth. Assuredly, all that was granted 
to the servant Agar, ought to have been so likewise, and 
on still better grounds, to the wife Sarah." a 

Enumerating afterwards the various figures by which it 
may have pleased the inspired writers to shadow forth the 
Church: "Is she represented as a house?" says he; 
" behold her seated on her rock, and on the foundation of 
her ministry, which is Peter. Is she spoken of as a fa- 
mily ? See our Lord pay tribute, as head of the house- 
hold, and first after him St. Peter as his representative. Is 
the Church likened to a barque ? St. Peter is its real 
patron, and this the Lord himself teaches me. Is the con- 
gregating of men which the Church brings about repre- 

^ Controverses de Saint Francois de Sales, disc. xl. p. 247. 
J'ai cite les sources d'apres lui. On ne pent avoir de doutes sur 
un tel transcripteur ; et d'ailleurs une verification detaillee m'eut 
ete impossible. 



54 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



sented by a fishing ? St. Peter there appears first, and the 
other disciples only fish after he has done. Is the doctrine 
preached to us in order to rescue us from the great waters, 
compared to the net of a fisherman ? St. Peter lets it 
down ; St. Peter draws it up ; the other disciples only act 
as his assistants ; St. Peter also presents the fishes to our 
Lord. Would you liken the Church to an embassy ? St. 
Peter is at its head. Would you rather compare it to a 
kingdom ? St. Peter bears the keys. Would you, in fine, 
have it figured by a sheepfold of lambs and of sheep? 
St. Peter is the shepherd and the general pastor, under 
Jesus Christ." 3 

I have not been able to refuse myself the pleasure of 
making this great and amiable saint instruct us for a 
moment, because he presents one of those general observa- 
tions so valuable in works where details are not allowed. 
Examine, one after another, the great doctors of the Ca- 
tholic Church ; in proportion as the principle of holiness 
has prevailed among them, you will find them always more 
fervent towards the Holy See, more sensible of its rights, 
more careful to defend them. And why ? Because the 
Holy See is never opposed but by pride, which is sacrificed 
by sanctity. 

In contemplating dispassionately this overwhelming mass 
of testimonies, the several colours of which, concentrated 
in a common focus, produce the white of evidence, we can- 
not be surprised at hearing candidly avowed, by one of the 
most distinguished French theologians, " that he is crushed 
by the powerful testimonies which Bellarmin and others 
haw collected, in order to establish the infallibility of the 
Roman Church; but that it is not easy to make them 
agree with the declaration of 1682, from which it is not 
allowed him to swerve." b 

a Contro verses cle St. Francis de Sales, disc. xlii. 

b Non dissimulandum est in tanta testimoniorum mole quse 
Bellarminus et alii congerunt, nos recognoscere apostolicse sedis 
seu Rom. Eccles. certain et infallibilem auctoritatem ; et longe 
difficilius est ea conciliare cum declaratione cleri Gallicani, a qua 
recedere nobis non permittitur. — Tournely, Tract, de Eccles. part 
ii. quaest. v. art. 3. 



CHAP. XI.] 



TEXTS OF BOSSUET. 



55 



All men free from prejudice must hold similar language. 
We may dispute about this as about everything else ; but 
conscience is satisfied by the number and the weight of 
witnesses. 



CHAPTER XL 

ON CERTAIN TEXTS OF BOSSUET. 

Arguments so decisive, and testimonies so precise, could 
not escape the excellent mind of Bossuet, but he had to 
exercise forbearance ; and, in order to make what he owed 
to conscience agree with what he thought he owed to other 
considerations, he clung with all his might to the cele- 
brated but vain distinction of the chair and person. 

" All the Roman Pontiffs together," said he, " ought to 
be considered as the one person of St. Peter continued, in 
whom the faith can never fail ; but if it should happen to 
stagger or even to fall with some, a it cannot be said that it 
ever falls completely, since it must speedily rise again ; 
and we believe firmly that it will never happen otherwise 
in the whole succession of Sovereign Pontiffs till the end 
of ages/' b 

What cobwebs ! miserable subtleties unworthy of Bossuet ! 
It is just about the same as if he had said that all the Ro- 
man emperors ought to be considered as a continuation of 
the person of Augustus ; that if wisdom and humanity ap- 
peared sometimes to stagger on the throne in the persons 
of some, such as Tiberius, Nero, Caligula, fyc, it cannot 

* What is meant by some, if there be only one person? and 
how, from several fallible persons, can there result one infallible 
person 1 

b Accipiendi Romani Pontifices tanquam una persona Petri, 
in qua nunquam fides Petri deficiat, atque ut in aliquibus va- 
cillet aut concidat, non tamen deficit in totum quae statim re- 
victura sit, ne porro aliter ad consummationem usque seculi in 
tota Pontificum successione eventurum esse certa fide credimus. 
— Bossuet, Defensio, &c. torn. ii. p. 191. 

There is not a word in all these sentences of Bossuet that ex- 
presses anything precise. What means stagger or vacillate? 
What means some, and completely, and speedily ? 



56 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK J. 



be said, notwithstanding, that they failed entirely, since 
they were destined soon to be renewed in the persons of tlie 
Antoninus, the Trajan, Sfc. 

Bossuet, however, had too much genius and candour to 
be ignorant of the essential relation which connects the idea 
of sovereignty with that of unity, and not to understand 
that it is impossible to displace infallibility without destroy- 
ing it. He beheld himself, then, obliged to have recourse 
(after the example of Vigor, Dupin, Noel, Alexander, and 
others) to the distinction of see and person, and to main- 
tain indefectibility in denying infallibility. a This idea he 
had already presented with the greatest skill in his im- 
mortal sermon on unity. b This is all that can be said, 
no doubt ; but conscience, left to itself, repels these sub- 
tleties, or rather, it understands them not at all. 

An ecclesiastical author — who has collected with much 
science, labour, and taste, a number of valuable passages 
relating to holy tradition — observed, very much to the 
purpose, "that the distinction between the different ways 
of pointing out the head of the Church is only a subter- 
fuge imagined by innovators, in order to separate the 
spouse from her Lord. . . . The partisans of schism and 
error studied to delude in transferring what concerns their 
judge and the visible centre of unity, to abstract names, 
&c." c 

a " That, contrary to the custom of all their predecessors, one or 
two Sovereign Pontiffs, either through violence or by surprise, 
have not upheld with sufficient constancy, or explained with suf- 
ficient fulness, the doctrine of faith. ... A vessel ploughing 
the waters leaves not slighter traces of her passage." — Serm. sur 
l'Unite, I er point. 

Illustrious man ! by what text, by what example, by what 
reasoning do you establish these subtle distinctions ? Faith has 
not so much ingenuity. Truth is simple, and is at once perceived. 

b Hence it comes, moreover, that in all this sermon he con- 
stantly avoids naming the Pope or the Sovereign Pontiff. He 
speaks always of the Holy See, the Chair of St. Peter, the Roman 
Church. In all that, there is nothing visible ; and nevertheless, 
every sovereignty that is not visible, exists not ; or is merely an 
idea. 

c Principes de la Doctrine Catholique, 8vo. p. 235. — The esti- 
mable author, who is not anonymous for me, avoids naming any- 



C HAP. XI.] 



TEXTS OF BOSSUET. 



57 



In hearing this, we can imagine we are listening to 
good sense in person ; but, confining ourselves even to 
the idea of Bossuet, I should like to address to him an 
argument ad hominem ; I would say to him : If the Pon- 
tiff in the abstract be infallible, and if he cannot stum- 
ble in the person of an individual without recovering him- 
self so promptly that it cannot be said he has fallen ; 
why this great provision of an oecumenical council, of 
the episcopal body, of the consent of the Church ? Let 
the Pope recover himself — it is the business of a moment. 
If he could be in error only during the time necessary 
for convoking an oecumenical council, or for assuring him- 
self of the consent of the universal Church, the compa- 
rison of the ship would be somewhat lame. a 

The philosophy of our age has often ridiculed those 
realists of the twelfth century, who maintained the exist- 
ence and the reality of universals, and who more than 
once ensanguined the school with their combats against 
the nominate, inquiring whether it were man or humanity 
that studied dialectics, and that gave or received hard 
blows ; but those realists who granted existence to the 
universals had at least the exceeding great goodness not 
to withhold it from individuals. In maintaining, for in- 
stance, the reality of the abstract elephant, never did they 
give it charge to provide us with ivory ; they always 
allowed us to require this commodity of the palpable 
elephants we had in our power. 

The realist theologians to whom I allude are bolder ; 
they strip the individual of the attributes with which they 
decorate the universal ; they admit the sovereignty of a 
dynasty, no member of which is sovereign. 

Nothing, however, is more contrary than this theory 
to the divine system (and I may surely thus express it) 
displayed in the whole economy of religion. God, who 
has made us what we are — God, who has subjected us to 

body, on account, no doubt, of the power of the names and the 
prejudices which surround him ; but it is sufficiently obvious 
whom he thought he had to complain of. 
a Sup. p. 102, note 1. 



58 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



time and matter, has not abandoned us to abstractions 
and to the chimeras of the imagination. He has made 
his Church visible, in order that there may be no excuse 
for him who will not see it ; his grace, even, he has at- 
tached to sensible signs. What is there more divine than 
the remission of sins? God, nevertheless, hath willed to 
materialize it, as it were, in favour of man. Fanaticism 
or enthusiasm could only deceive themselves in trusting 
to interior movements. For the guilty there must be a 
tribunal, a judge, and words. The divine clemency, like 
the justice of a human tribunal, must be made obvious 
to him. 

How, then, could it be believed that, on the funda- 
mental point, God has derogated from his most evident, 
his most general, his most humane laws ? It is quite easy 
to say : " It has pleased the Holy Ghost and us." The 
Quaker says also that he has the Spirit; and Cromwell's 
Puritans said the same. Those who speak in the name 
of the Holy Ghost, ought to show that they are entitled 
to do so ; the mystic dove does not come to rest on any 
fantastic rock : this is not what it promised. 

If some great men have consented to place themselves in 
the ranks of the inventors of a dangerous chimera, we shall 
not derogate from the respect which is due to them, whilst 
we observe that they cannot derogate from truth. 

There is, besides, a characteristic, very honourable in- 
deed for them, which will ever distinguish them from their 
wretched colleagues — it consists in this : that the latter 
never advance a false principle but in favour of revolt ; 
whilst the former, on the contrary, powerfully influenced by 
the accidents of human affairs, it cannot be said otherwise, 
to maintain the principle, refuse, nevertheless, to follow it to 
its consequences, and cannot disobey. 

We cannot imagine, besides, in what difficulties the par- 
tisans of abstract power engage themselves, with a view to 
give it the reality it stands in need of, in order to act. 
The word Church figures in their writings as that of 
nation in those of the French revolutionists. 

I pass by the obscure men whose difficulties occasion no 



CHAP. XI. J 



TEXTS OF BOSSUET. 



59 



difficulty ; but read, in the new pieces of Fleury, the inter- 
esting conversation of Bossuet and the Bishop of Tournay 
(Choiseul Praslin), which has been preserved to us by 
Fenelon, a and we shall see how the Bishop of Tournay 
pressed Bossuet, and urged hirn to infallibility, on the 
ground of indefectibility. But the great man had resolved 
not to shock anybody ; and it is in this system, invariably 
pursued, that we find the origin of those painful troubles 
which mingled so much bitterness with the latter days of 
his existence. 

"We must have courage to acknowledge that he is some- 
what tiresome with his canons, to which he incessantly 
recurs. 

" Our ancient doctors," says he, " have all recognised, 
with one voice, in the Chair of St. Peter (he takes good 
care to avoid saying, in the person of the Sovereign Pon- 
tiff) the fulness of apostolical power. This is a point 
decided and resolved on/' Nothing better ; this is the 
dogma. " But," he continues, " they only require that it 
be regulated in its exercise by the canons." b 

Now, in the first place, the doctors of Paris have no 
more right than others to exact such and such things of the 
Pope ; they are subject like the rest, and obliged in like 
manner, to respect its sovereign decisions. They are, 
nothing more, nothing less, what all the doctors of the 
Catholic world are. 

Whom, besides, does Bossuet aim at, and what means 
this restriction, " but they require," &c. ? From what 
time have the Popes pretended to govern without laws ? 
The most frantic enemy of the Holy See would not venture 
to deny, with history in his hand, that on no throne of the 
world has there existed, everything considered, more wisdom, 
more virtue, and more science, than on that of the Sove- 
reign Pontiffs. Why, then, should not men have as much, 

a Nouv. opusc. de Fleury. Paris, 1807. 12mo. pp. 146 and 199. 
b Semi, sur 1' Unite, II e point. 

e " The Pope is commonly a man of great knowledge and of 
great virtue, who, having attained maturity of years and expe- 
rience, has rarely either vanity or pleasure to satisfy at the ex- 



60 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



and even more, confidence in this sovereignty, than in all 
the rest, which have never had the pretension to govern 
without laws ? 

" But what/' it will no doubt be said, " if the Pope 
happened to abuse his power?" With this puerile ques- 
tion are consciences and the question at issue alike con- 
founded. 

And if temporal sovereignty abused its power, what would 
be done ? This is positively the same question. Monsters 
are conjured up, to be combated. When authority com- 
mands, there are only three courses that can be adopted — 
obedience, remonstrance, and revolt : which last is, in the 
spiritual order of things, called heresy, and in the temporal, 
revolution. A pretty fair experience has just taught us 
that the greatest evils resulting from subordination amount 
not to a thousandth part of those arising from rebellion. 
There are, besides, particular reasons in favour of the go- 
vernment of the Popes. How can it be maintained that 
men of experience — wise, prudent, reserved by character as 
well as from necessity — abuse spiritual power to such a de- 
gree as to cause incurable evils ? We have just heard an 
estimable Protestant acknowledge, candidly, that recourse 
having been had on good grounds to the Popes, and never- 
theless despised by them, was a phenomenon unknown in 
history. Bossuet, proclaiming the same truth on a solemn 
occasion, confesses that there has always been something 
paternal in the Holy See* 

A little above he had said : "As it has always been the 
custom of the Church of France to propose canons, 5 so the 

pense of his people, and is not embarrassed either with wife or 
children, &c." — Addison, Suppl. to Travels of Misson, p. 126. 

And Gibbon agrees, with like honesty, " that if we calculate the 
advantages and the defects of ecclesiastical government, we may 
praise it in its actual state as a mild, decent, and peaceful admi- 
nistration, which has not to dread the dangers of a minority nor 
the impetuosity of a young prince, which is not undermined by 
luxury, and which is free from the horrors of war." — Decline and 
Fall, &c. These two texts may stand in lieu of other quotations, 
and cannot be contradicted by any man of common honesty. 

a Serm. sur 1' Unite, IP point. 

b C'est une distraction, lisez des canons. 



CHAP. XI.] 



TEXTS OF BOSSUET. 



61 



Holy See has always been in the habit of lending a willing 
ear to such proposals." 

But if there has always been something paternal in the 
government of the Holy See, and if it has always been its 
custom to listen willingly to particular Churches which 
ashed canons of it, what signify those fears, those alarms, 
those restrictions, that fatiguing and endless appeal to the 
canons f 

The so justly celebrated sermon on the Unity of the 
Church will never be perfectly understood, if the difficult 
problem Bossuet had undertaken to solve in that discourse 
is not constantly borne in mind. He wished to establish 
the Catholic doctrine on the Roman supremacy without 
shocking an exasperated auditory, for whom he had very 
little esteem, and whom he believed too capable of some 
solemn act of folly. We could desire sometimes more can- 
dour in his expressions, if we lost sight for a moment of this 
general end. 

What is his meaning, for instance, when he says (IP 
point) : " The power which must be acknowledged in the 
Holy See is so high and so eminent, so dear and so vene- 
rable to all the faithful, that there is nothing above the 
whole Catholic Church together V 

Would he mean by any chance that the whole Church 
can exist where the Sovereign Pontiff is not ? In this case 
he would have advanced a theory which even his great name 
could not excuse. Admit this absurd theory, and you will 
soon behold unity disappear by virtue of the sermon on 
U nity. To speak of a Church separated from its chief, is to 
speak without meaning. It is the British parliament minus 
the king. 

What we read immediately after, regarding the holy 
council of Pisa and the holy council of Constantia, explains 
too clearly what precedes. It is a great misfortune that so 
many French theologians should have adhered to this coun- 
cil of Constantia, and thus have obscured the clearest ideas. 
The Roman lawyers have well said that " Laws take no 
trouble except with what occurs often, not with what hap- 
pens once." An event, unexampled in the history of the 



62 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK 



Church, rendered its Chief doubtful during forty years. It 
became necessary to do what had never been done before, 
and what will never, perhaps, be done again. The emperor 
assembled the bishops to the number of about two hundred. 
It was an assembly, and not a council. This assembly 
sought to give itself the authority which was wanting to it 
in removing all uncertainty as to the person of the Pope. 
It legislated on matters of faith ; and why not ? A pro- 
vincial council may make statutes in regard to dogma ; and 
if the Holy See approves the decision, cannot be disturbed. 
This is just what occurred in the case of the decisions of 
the council of Constantia on points of faith. It has been 
over and over again said, " that the Pope had approved 
them ; " and once more, why not, if they were well founded ? 
The Fathers of Constantia, although they by no means 
formed a council, were nevertheless an infinitely respectable 
assembly, both by the number and the character of its 
members ; but in all that they were able to accomplish 
without the intervention of the Pope, and even whilst there 
existed not a Pope incontestably recognized, a country 
curate, or even a sacristan, was theologically as infallible 
as they ; which hindered not Martin V. from approving as 
he did all that they had done, with a view to conciliation ; 
and hence the council of Constantia became oecumenical, 
as had formerly become the second and the fifth general 
councils, by the adhesion of the Popes, who had not taken 
part in them either in person or by their legates. 

Those persons, then, who are not sufficiently conversant 
with matters of this kind, must look well to what they read, 
when such statements as these are laid before them, " that 
the Popes approved the decisions of the council of Constan- 
tia." They did, undoubtedly, approve the decisions car- 
ried in that assembly against the errors of Wickliffe and 
John Huss ; but that the episcopal body separated from the 
Pope, and (even in opposition to the Pope) can make laws 
binding on the Holy See, and pronounce on dogma in a 
divinely infallible manner, is, to use the language of 
Bossuet, a prodigious proposition — less contrary, perhaps, 
to sound theology than to good logic. 



CHAP. XII.] COUNCIL OF CONSTANTIA. 



03 



CHAPTER XII. 

OF THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTIA. 

What, then, must we think of that famous Session IV. in 
which the council (assembly) declares itself superior to the 
Pope? The answer is easy. It must be said that the 
assembly spoke nonsense, as have likewise done, since their 
time, the Long Parliament of England, and the Constituent 
Assembly, and the Legislative Assembly, and the National 
Convention, and the Five Hundred, and the Two Hundred, 
and the last Cortes of Spain — in a word, all imaginable 
assemblies, however numerous, but without a president. 

Bossuet said, in 1681, foreseeing already what dangerous 
influences were destined to be at work the following year : 
" You know what assemblies are, and what spirit commonly 
prevails in them." a 

And Cardinal de Retz, who knew something of such 
things, had previously said in his memoirs, in a more gene- 
ral and striking manner, " whoever assembles the people 
excites them to disorder/' This general maxim I ap- 
ply only in the present case with the modifications which 
justice, and even respect, demand ; but which, nevertheless, 
is incontestable. 

The laws of fermentation are the same both in the moral 
and the physical order of things. It arises from contact, 
and is in proportion with the masses that ferment. Gather 
together men intoxicated by any passion whatsoever, it will 
not be long till you behold in rapid succession heat, exalta- 
tion, delirium — just as in the material circle turbulent fer- 
mentation leads rapidly to acidity, and thence to putrescence. 
Every assembly tends to follow this general law, if its de- 
velopment is not arrested by the cooling power of autho- 
rity, which insinuates itself into the interstices, and puts 
the movement to death. Only imagine the position of the 
bishops of Constantia, agitated by all the passions of 
Europe, divided into nations, having opposite interests, 

a Bossuet, Lettre a l'Abbe de Ranee. Fontainebleau, Sept. 
1681. — Hist, de Bossuet, liv. vi. No. 3, tome ii. p. 94. 



64 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



fatigued by delay, rendered impatient by contradiction, 
separated from the cardinals, deprived of their centre, 
and, worst misfortune of all, influenced by discordant so- 
vereigns ; is it so wonderful that — pressed, besides, by the 
desire to put an end to the most deplorable schism that 
ever afflicted the Church, and in an age in which the 
compass of science had not yet assigned proper limits to 
men's ideas, as it has done in our days — those bishops 
should have said to themselves : " We cannot restore 
peace to the Church, and reform it in its Chief and its 
members, without commanding this Chief himself: let us 
declare, then, that he is bound to obey us ? " Men of 
great genius in succeeding ages have not reasoned better. 
The assembly pronounced itself, then, in the first place, 
an oecumenical council ; a this was quite necessary, in 
order to arrive at the consequence, " that every person, 
of whatever dignity or condition, even papal, b was bound 
to obey the council in what regarded faith, and the ex- 
tirpation of schism/' c 

But what follows is perfectly ludicrous : — 
" Our lord Pope John XXII. shall not transfer out of the 
town of Constantia the court of Borne nor its ofhcers, and 
shall not constrain them, either directly or indirectly, to 
follow him, without the deliberation and consent of the 
council ; in particular as regards the offices and officers 
whose absence might be the cause of the dissolution of the 
council, or be hurtful to it." d 

Thus the Fathers acknowledge that, by the departure of 
the Pope alone, the council is dissolved ; and, in order to 
avert this misfortune, they forbid him to depart — that is 
to say, in other words, that they pronounce themselves the 
superiors of Him whom they declare to be above them. This 
is exquisite. 

a As certain states-general declared themselves a national assem- 
bly, in what regarded the constitution and the extirpation of 
abuses. Never was there parity more exact. 

b They do not venture to say plainly the Pope. 

c Session IV. 

d Fleury, liv. cii. No. 175. 



CHAP. XII.] COUNCIL OF CONSTANTIA. 



65 



The fifth session was only a repetition of the fonrth. a 
The Catholic world was at that time divided into three 
parties or obediences, each of whom recognized a different 
Pope. Two of these obediences (that of Gregory XII. and 
Benedict XIII.) never received the decree of Constantia 
pronounced in the fourth session ; and since the obediences 
were united, the council never attributed to itself, inde- 
pendently of the Pope, the right of reforming the Church 
in the chief and in the members. But in the session of the 
30th October, 1417, Martin V. having been elected with 
unexampled unanimity, the council decreed that the Pope 
himself should reform the Church, as ivell in its head as in 
its members, according to equity and the good government 
of the Church. 

The Pope, on the other hand, in the forty-fifth session, 
held 22nd April, 1417, approved all that the council had 
done in a conciliatory spirit (this he repeats twice over), 
regarding matters of faith. 

And some days earlier, by a bull of 10th March, he had 
forbidden appeals from the decrees of the Holy See, which 
he called the Sovereign Judge ; thus did the Pope approve 
the Council of Constantia. 

Never was there anything so thoroughly null, or even so 
obviously ridiculous, as the fourth session of the Council of 
Constantia, which Providence and the Pope afterwards 
changed in council. 

But if certain people will persist in saying we admit the 
fourth session (completely forgetting that the word ice, in 
the Catholic Church, is mere nonsense, unless it refer to 
all), we shall let them talk; and instead of laughing- 
only at the fourth session, we shall laugh both at the fourth 
session and at those who refuse to laugh at it. 

a There would be an infinity of things to say on these two ses- 
sions, on the manuscripts of Scheelestrate, on the objections of 
Arnaud and Bossuet, on the support which these manuscripts have 
derived from the precious discoveries made in the libraries of 
Germany, &c. &c. ; but if I plunged into these details, there would 
happen to me a small misfortune, which I should like, if possible, 
to avoid — that of not being read. 



66 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



By virtue of the inevitable force of things, every assem- 
bly that has no check is immoderate. There may be a little 
more or a little less extravagance ; it may occur a little 
sooner or a little later ; but the law is infallible. Call to 
mind the follies of Basle. At that extraordinary council, 
some seven or eight persons, bishops and priests, declared 
themselves above the Pope ; deposed him, even ; and, to 
crown the work, pronounced all who should oppose them 
fallen from their dignities, were they bishops, archbishops, 
patriarchs, cardinals, kings, or empeeors. 

These melancholy examples show what will always hap- 
pen in similar circumstances. Never can peace prevail 
or be re-established in the Church, by the influence of an 
assembly without a head. Always to the Sovereign Pontiff, 
either alone or accompanied, must recourse be had ; and the 
experience of all times speaks for this authority. 

It may be observed that the French theologians who have 
believed themselves obliged to sustain the unsustainable 
Council of Constantia, never fail carefully to intrench them- 
selves in the general assertion of the superiority of an oecu- 
menical council over the Pope, without ever explaining 
what they mean by an oecumenical council ; nothing more 
is necessary to show how much they feel embarrassed. 
Fleury shall speak for all : 

" The Council of Constantia/' says he, " establishes the 
maxim which has always been taught in France? that 
every Pope is subject to the judgment of every general 
council in what regards faith/' b 

Pitiful reticence ! unworthy, indeed, of such a man as 
Fleury ! The question is not whether a general council be 
above the Pope, but whether there can be a general council 
without the Pope, or independently of the Pope ; this is 
the question. Say at Rome that the Sovereign Pontiff has 
no right to abrogate the canons of the Council of Trent, 

a After all that has been laid before the reader, and especially 
after the declaration of 1626, how shall we designate this as- 
sertion ? 

b Fleury, nouv. opusc. p. 44. 



CHAP. XIII.] CANONS IN GENERAL. 



67 



and assuredly you will not have to burn for it. The mat- 
ter in question here is twofold. It is inquired, in the first 
place, what is the essence of a general council, and what are 
the characteristics the slightest alteration of which destroys 
this essence ? It is asked, in the second place, whether the 
council thus instituted be above the Pope f To treat the 
latter question, leaving the former out of view — to speak in 
sounding terms of the superiority of councils over the Sove- 
reign Pontiff, without knowing how to say, without being 
willing to say, without venturing to say, what an oecume- 
nical council is — this, it must be candidly declared, is not 
only an error of mere dialectics, but a sin against honesty. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

OF CANONS IN GENERAL, AND APPEAL TO THEIR, AUTHORITY. 

It follows not, however, that because the authority of 
the Pope is sovereign, it is above the laws, and can sport 
with them ; but those men who cease not to appeal to the 
canons, have a secret they are at pains to conceal, although 
under veils that are sufficiently transparent. The word 
canons, according to their theology, ought to be understood 
to express canons which they have made, or such as are pleas- 
ing to them. They venture not to say altogether that if the 
Pope thought proper to make new canons, they would have 
a right to reject them : but let us not be deceived ; if such 
be not their express words, there is no doubt as to their 
meaning. 

The whole of this dispute on the observation of the 
canons is pitiful. Ask the Pope if he understands he is 
to govern without rule, and sport with the canons — you 
will horrify him. Ask all the bishops of the Catholic 
world if they understand that extraordinary circumstances 
may not render legitimate abrogations, exceptions, dero- 
gations, and whether sovereignty in the Church be grown 
sterile from age, so that it hath lost the right inherent in 



68 



THE POPE. 



[book L 



all power to produce new laws in proportion as new wants 
require them — they will think that you are jesting. 

It being impossible, therefore, that any man of sense 
should deny to any sovereignty whatever the power of 
making laws, of executing them, abrogating them, and 
dispensing with them, when circumstances require it ; and 
no sovereignty claiming a right to use this power, except 
in such circumstances, what ground is there, I would ask, 
for discussion ? What mean certain French theologians 
with their canons ? and what, in particular, is Bossuet's 
meaning, with his great restriction, which he announces to 
us in whispers as a delicate mystery of ecclesiastical go- 
vernment : the plenitude of power belongs to the chair of 
St. Peter, BUT we require that its exercise be regulated 
by the canons ? 

"When did the Popes ever make pretension to the con- 
trary? When we have attained, as regards government, 
that degree of perfection which admits only of such defects 
as are inseparable from human nature, we must not think 
of proceeding farther, and of seeking in vain hypotheses 
the everlasting seeds of mistrust and rebellion. But, as I 
have already observed, Bossuet was resolved to satisfy both 
his conscience and his hearers ; and, considering it in this 
point of view, his sermon on unity is one of the most 
powerful efforts known to exist. Each line is a study ; 
every word is weighed; an article even, as we have seen, 
may be the result of profound deliberation. The extreme 
embarrassment of the illustrious orator hinders him often 
from employing language with that strictness which would 
have satisfied us if he had not dreaded to displease others. 
When he says, for instance, " In the chair of Saint Peter 
resides the plenitude of Apostolic power, but its exercise 
must be regulated by the canons, lest, raising itself above 
all, it should itself destroy its own decrees : thus is the 
jostery understood/'* Once more I ask pardon of the 

a A little lower down, he exclaims : " Do you now understand 
this immortal beauty of the Catholic Church ? " By no means, my 
lord bishop, unless you condescend to add a few words, 



CHAP. XIII.] CANONS IN GENERAL. 



69 



celebrated shade of this great man, whilst I declare that, 
for me, the veil becomes thicker, and, far from under- 
standing the mystery, I comprehend it less than before. 
We seek not a decision in regard to the moral law ; we 
know already, and for some time back, that a sovereign, 
could not do better than govern well. This mystery is in- 
deed no great mystery ; the question is to know whether 
the Sovereign Pontiff, being a supreme power* is by that 
same also a legislative power, in the full force of the term : 
if, in the mind of the illustrious Bossuet, that power be 
capable of raising itself above every other ; whether the 
Pope be entitled, in any case, to abrogate or to modify any 
of his decrees ; whether there be a power in the Church 
which has a right to judge whether the Pope has rightly 
judged, and what power that is ; finally, whether a parti- 
cular Church can have, in regard to the Pope, any other 
right than that of representation. 

Bossuet, it is true, some twenty pages lower down, quotes 
without disapprobation the words of Charlemagne, that al- 
though the Roman Church shoidd impose an almost insup- 
portable yoke, it would be our duty to suffer, rather than 
separate from her communion} 3 

It is, however, beyond dispute that, if the bishops 
assembled, without the Pope, can call themselves the 
Church, and arrogate to themselves any other power than 
that of certifying the person of the Pope, at those times — 
infinitely rare — when it might be doubtful, there is no 
longer unity, and the visible Church disappears. 

On the whole, notwithstanding the numberless artifices of 
a learned and Catholic condescension, let us thank Bossuet 
for having said in this celebrated sermon, that the power 
of the Pope is a supreme power ; c that the Church is 
founded on its authority ; d that in the chair of St. Peter 

a Supreme powers (speaking of the Pope) require to be informed. 
— Sermon on Unity, III e point. 
b Ibid. II e point. 

c Sermon on the Unity of the Church, Works of Bossuet, torn, 
vii. p. 41. 

d Vid. ibid. p. 31. 



70 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



resides the fulness of apostolical power ; a that when the 
Pope is attacked, the entire episcopacy (that is, the Church) 
is in danger ; b that there is always something paternal in 
the Holy See ; c that it can do all, although to do so would 
not always be suitable ; d that, from the origin of Christianity, 
the Popes have always professed, in causing the laws to 
be observed, to be the first to observe them ; e that they 
maintain unity in the whole body, sometimes by inflexible 
decrees, and sometimes by wise expedients ; f that the 
bishops have altogether but one chair, from the essential 
relation they all have with the one chair in which are 
seated St. Peter and his successors ; and that they ought, 
in consequence of this doctrine, all to act according to the 
spirit of Catholic unity, so that each bishop says nothing, 
does nothing, thinks nothing, which the universal Church 
may not acknowledge ; s that power given to several is re- 
stricted by thus being portioned out ; whereas, power 
given to one, and over all, and without exception, implies 
plenitude ; h that the eternal chair knows not heresy that 
the faith of Rome is always the faith of the Church ; that 
the Roman Church is always pure ; and that all heresies 
have received from it either their first blow or their death- 
blow ; j that the clearest mark of the aid which the Holy 
Ghost bestows on this mother of all churches consists in 
her being rendered so just and moderate that she has never 
given a place among her dogmas to any excess or exagge- 
ration. 14 

Thanks to Bossuet for what he has said ; and let us 
give him credit particularly for what he has prevented, but 
without forgetting that so long as we shall not speak more 
clearly than he has permitted himself to do in his memorable 
discourse, the unity which he recommends and celebrates 
dwindles to a vague idea, and no longer fixes our belief. 

a A Sermon on the Unity of the Church, Works of Bossuet, 
torn. vii. p. 14. 

b Vid. ibid. p. 25. c Vid. ibid. p. 41. d Vid. ibid. p. 31. 
e Vid. ibid. p. 32. f Vid. ibid. p. 29. e Vid. ibid. p. 16. 
h Vid. ibid. p. 14. 1 Vid. ibid. p. 9. > Vid. ibid. p. 10. 
k Vid. ibid. p. 32. 



CHAP. XIV.] DECISIONS OF THE POPES. 



71 



Leibnitz, the greatest of Protestants, and perhaps the 
greatest of men in respect of science, made this objection 
to Bossuet in 1690, that no agreement had ever yet been 
come to in the Roman Church as to the true subject or 
radical seat of infallibility, — some placing it in the Pope, 
others in a general council, although without the Pope, fyc* 

Such is the result of the fatal system adopted by some 
theologians on the subject of councils, and founded princi- 
pally on one unique fact, ill understood and ill explained 
because it is unique. In bringing forward the fundamental 
dogma of infallibility, they conceal the focus where it ought 
to be looked for. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

EXAMINATION OF A PARTICULAR DIFFICULTY RAISED AGAINST 
THE DECISIONS OF THE POPES. 

The doctrinal decisions of the Popes have always been 
law in the Church. The adversaries of pontifical supremacy, 
unable to deny this great fact, have sought, nevertheless, 
to explain it in their sense, maintaining that those decisions 
derived their strength from the consent of the Church ; 
and, to establish this opinion, they observe that often be- 
fore being received they have been examined in the councils 
with full information. Bossuet, especially, has made an 
effort of argumentation and erudition, in order to render 
this consideration as available as possible. 

And, indeed, the paralogism is tolerably plausible, that 
since the council has ordered a preliminary examination of 
a constitution of the Pope, it is proved that it did not con- 
sider it decisive. It will therefore be useful to clear up this 
difficulty. 

French writers, for the most part, since the time par- 
ticularly that the mania of constitutions took possession of 
men's minds, all commence, without even perceiving that 
they do so, with the supposition of an imaginary law, an- 

a See his correspondence with Bossuet. 



72 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK fj 



terior to all facts, and which has directed them all ; inso- 
much, that if the Pope, for instance, be sovereign in the 
Church, all the acts recorded in ecclesiastical history ought 
to bear witness to this fact, bending uniformly, and without 
a struggle, to this supposition ; and that, supposing the 
contrary, all these facts ought, in like manner, to contradict 
the fact of the Pope's sovereignty. 

Now, there is nothing more false than this supposition, 
and things are by no means as they are here described. 
Never did any important institution result from a law, and 
the greater the institution, the less is it written. It is 
formed of itself by the concurrence of a thousand agents, 
who are almost always ignorant of what they are doing ; so 
that they often appear not to perceive the right which they 
themselves are establishing. The institution vegetates thus 
insensibly in the course of ages : " Crescit occulto velut 
arbor wvo " is the never-failing device of every great poli- 
tical or religious creation. Had St. Peter a distinct know- 
ledge of the extent of his prerogative, and of the questions 
it would cause to arise in after-times ? I know not. When, 
after a wise deliberation bestowed upon the examination of 
an important question at the time, he was the first to speak 
in the Council of Jerusalem, and that all the multitude held 
their tongue? St. James, even, having spoken in his turn 
from his patriarchal chair, only to confirm what the chief 
of the apostles had just decided, did St. Peter act with or 
in virtue of a clear and distinct knowledge of his prero- 
gative ? — or, in thus creating for his character this magni- 
ficent testimony, did he act only from an interior movement, 
apart from all rational contemplation ? Still I know not. 

By way of general theory, curious questions might be 
raised ; but I should dread plunging into subtleties ; and 
instead of offering merely newness of argument, producing 
something wholly new ; which would annoy me exceed- 
ingly. It is far better to hold to simple and purely prac- 
tical ideas. 

The authority of the Pope in the Church, in relation to 
a Acts xv. 12. 



CHAP. XIV.] DECISIONS OF THE POPES. 73 

dogmatical questions, has always been marked with the 
impress of the highest wisdom. It has never shown itself 
precipitate, haughty, insulting, despotical. It has been its 
invariable custom to hear all, even rebels, when they de- 
sired to defend themselves. Why, then, should it have 
opposed the examination of one of its decisions in a general 
council ? This examination rests entirely on the conde- 
scension of the Popes, and thus have they always understood 
it. It never will be proved that the councils took cogni- 
zance, as judges, properly so called, of the dogmatical de- 
cisions of the Popes, and that they thus arrogated to them- 
selves the right of accepting or rejecting them. 

A striking exemplification of this theory is found in the 
so often quoted Council of Chalcedon. The Pope there per- 
mitted, indeed, that his letter should be examined ; and 
meanwhile he never maintained, in a solemn manner, the 
irreformability of his dogmatical judgments. 

In order that the facts should be contrary to this theory, 
that is, to the supposition of pure condescension, there 
must be, at the same time (as those, particularly, who are 
learned in the law well understand), contradiction on the 
part of the Popes, and judgment by the councils, which has 
never been the case. 

But it must be particularly observed that the French 
theologians are, of all men in the world, those whom it 
would least become to reject this distinction. None have 
made more than they have done of the right of bishops to 
receive the dogmatical decisions of the Holy See, with 
knowledge of cause, and as judges of faith.* Nevertheless, 
no Gallican bishop would arrogate to himself the right of 
declaring false, and of rejecting as such, a dogmatical deci- 
sion of the Holy Father. He knows that such judgment 
would be criminal, and even ridiculous. 

There is, therefore, some distance between the purely 
passive obedience which registers a law in silence, and the 
superiority which examines it with power to reject it. 

a This right was exercised in the affairs of Fenelon in a very 
amusingly pompous manner. 



74 



THE TOPE. 



[BOOK I. 



Now, it is in this medium that Gallican writers will find 
the solution of a difficulty which has made much noise, 
but which, notwithstanding, comes to be nothing when 
narrowly inquired into. General councils can, no doubt, 
examine the dogmatical decrees of the Popes, in order to 
penetrate their meaning, to explain them to themselves 
and to other men, to compare them with the Scriptures, 
with tradition, and with preceding councils, in order to re- 
ply to objections, in order to render those decisions agree- 
able, plausible, evident to the obstinacy which repels them ; 
in a word, to pass judgment on them, as the Gallican 
Church passes judgment on a dogmatical constitution of 
the Pope before accepting it. 

Has this Church the right to pass judgment, in the full 
sense of the term, on one of these decrees ; that is, to ac- 
cept it or reject it, even, if need be, to declare it heretical ? 
It will reply, that it has not ; for, after all, the first of its 
attributes is common sense. a 

But, since it has no right to judge, why does it discuss ? 
Is it not better to accept humbly, and without previous ex- 
amination, a determination which it is not entitled to con- 

a Bercastel, in his Ecclesiastical History, has, however, disco- 
vered a very ingenious method of placing the bishops at their 
ease, and of conferring on them the power of judging the Pope. 
" The judgment of the bishops," says he, " is not exercised on 
the judgment of the Pope, but on the matters he has judged." 
So that, if the Sovereign Pontiff decided, for instance, that such 
a proposition is scandalous and heretical, the French bishops can- 
not say that he is wrong : they can only decide that the propo- 
sition is edifying and orthodox. 

" The bishops," continues the same writer, " follow the same 
rules as the Pope, Scripture, and tradition, and particularly the 
tradition of their own churches, in order to examine and to pro- 
nounce according to the measure of authority they have re- 
ceived from Jesus Christ, whether the doctrine proposed be con- 
formable or contrary thereto." — Hist, de l'Eglise, torn. xxiv. 
p. 93, cited by M. de Barral, No. 31, p. 305. 

This theory of Bercastel would present a weak side to severe 
reflections, if it were not known that it was nothing else than an 
innocent artifice on the part of the estimable author, in order to 
escape the parliaments, and make the rest go down. 



CHAP. XIV.] DECISIONS OF THE POPES. 



75 



tradict ? To this, also, it will say no ; and yet, it will 
insist on examining. 

Well, let it not tell us any more that the dogmatical de- 
cisions of the Sovereign Pontiffs, pronounced ex cathedra, 
are not without appeal, since certain councils have ex- 
amined some of them before changing them into canons. 

When, at the commencement of the last century, Leib- 
nitz, corresponding with Bossuet on the great question of 
the re-union of the Churches, required, as an indispensable 
preliminary, that the Council of Trent should be declared 
not oecumenical, Bossuet, justly inflexible on this point, 
declares to him, nevertheless, that all that can be done, in 
order to facilitate this great work, is to revise the council 
by way of explanation. Let him no longer, therefore, ex- 
press astonishment that the Popes should have permitted 
their decisions to be reviewed, by way of explanation. 

Cardinal Orsi addresses to him on this subject an argu- 
ment which appears to me unanswerable : 

" The Greeks accused us/'' says he, "in beginning by 
the exposition of facts, of having decided the question 
without them, and they appealed from our decisions to a 
general council. Whereupon Pope Eugenius said to them : 
/ propose to you to choose between four things : 1. Are 
you convinced, by all the authorities we have quoted to you, 
that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son? 
This settles the question. 2. If you are not convinced, tell 
us in what respect the proof appears to you weak, in order 
that we may add to our proofs, and so prove this dogma 
even to demonstration. 3. If, on your part, you know 
texts favourable to your opinion, quote them. 4. If all this 
does not suffice, let us proceed to a general council. Let us 
swear all, Greeks and Latins, to speak freely the truth, and 
to hold to that which shall appear true to the greater 
number." 8 

Thus Orsi says to Bossuet : " Either grant that the 

a Jusjurandum demus, Latini pariter ac Graeci . . . . Proferatur 
libere Veritas per juramentum, et quod pluribus videbitur, hoc 
amplectemur et nos et vos. 



76 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK fi 



Council of Lyons (the most general of all the general 
councils) was not oecumenical, or admit that the examina- 
tion of the letters of the Popes made in a council proves 
nothing against infallibility, since it was agreed that the 
question decided in that of Lyons should be brought forward 
anew, and was indeed brought forward in the Council of 
Florence." a 

I know not what a sincere mind could reply to what has 
just been read. As to the spirit of contention, no reason- 
ing can reach it. Let us wait until it please it to entertain 
the same opinion in regard to councils as the councils 
themselves. 



CHAPTER XV. 

INFALLIBILITY DE FACTO. 

If, from the question of right, we pass to that of facts, 
which are the touchstone of right, we cannot avoid the con- 
clusion that the Chair of St. Peter, considered in the cer- 
tainty of its decisions, is naturally an incomprehensible 
phenomenon. Replying to the whole world for eighteen 
centuries, how often have the Popes been found to be in- 
contestably wrong ? Never. Cavils have been raised ; but 
never has it been found possible to allege anything de- 
cisive. 

Among Protestants, and even in France, as I have 
often remarked, the idea of infallibility has been amplified 
to such a degree, as to render it a ridiculous bugbear. It 
is therefore quite essential to form a clear and perfectly 
well-defined idea of it. 

The defenders of this great privilege say, then, and say 

b Jos. August. Orsi. de irreform. Rom. Pontine, in definiendis 
fidei controversiis judicio. Romge, 1772, 3 vols, in 4to. torn. i. 
lib. i. cap. xxxvii. art. i. p. 81. 

The bishops of a national church, and likewise even individual 
bishops, have often been known in the Church to confirm the 
decrees of general councils. Orsi gives examples taken from the 
fourth, fifth, and sixth general councils. — Ibid. lib. ii. cap. i. 
art. civ. p. 104. 



CHAP. XV.] INFALLIBILITY DE FACTO. 



77 



nothing more, than that the Sovereign Pontiff, speaking in 
freedom* to the Church, and as the schools say, "ex ca- 
thedra/' never erred, and never will err, in matter of 
faith. 

By what has occurred until now, I do not see that this 
proposition has been refuted. All that has been said 
against the Popes, in order to make out that they have 
erred, is either without solid grounds, or beyond the range 
which I have just defined. 

The criticism which has taken delight in counting the 
faults of the Popes loses not a minute in ecclesiastical 
history, but proceeds at once to St. Peter. With him it 
begins its catalogue ; and, although the fault of the Prince 
of the Apostles be a fact wholly foreign to the question, it 
has not been the less adverted to by all the books of the 
opposition as the first proof of the fallibility of the Sove- 
reign Pontiff. I shall cite, on this point, a writer the most 
recent, if I mistake not, amongst Frenchmen of the episco- 
pal order who have written against the great prerogative of 
the Holy See. b 

He had to repel the solemn and embarrassing testimony 
of the clergy of France, declaring, in 1625, that infallibi- 
lity has always remained firm and immoveable in the suc- 
cessors of St. Peter. 

To get rid of this difficulty, see what the learned prelate 
has fallen upon : — " The indef edibility," says he, " or in- 
fallibility which has remained until this day firm and im- 
moveable in the successors of St. Peter, is not undoubtedly 
of another kind than that with which was invested the 
Chief of the Apostles by virtue of the prayer of Jesus 
Christ. Now, the event proved that indefectibility, or in- 

a By this word freely, I mean, that neither torments, nor per- 
secution, nor violence in any shape, shall have been able to 
deprive the Sovereign Pontiff of the liberty of mind which ought 
to preside over his decisions. 

b Defence of the Liberties of the Galilean Church, and of the 
Assembly of the Clergy of France, held in 1682. Paris, 1817, in 4to. 
By the late M. Louis Matthias de Barral, Archbishop of Tours, 
pp. 327, 328, 329. 



78 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



fallibility in faith, did not shield him from a fall ; there- 
fore/' &c. And, lower down, he adds : — " Falsely exag- 
gerated are the effects of Christ's intercession, which was 
the pledge of the stability of the faith of Peter, without, 
nevertheless, hindering his humbling fall." 

Behold thus theologians, bishops even (I cite only one, 
as representing all who hold similar views), advancing, or 
at least supposing, without the least doubt, that the Ca- 
tholic Church was established, and that St. Peter was 
Sovereign Pontiff before the death of our Saviour. 

They had read, notwithstanding, just as we have done, 
that " where there is a testament the death of the testator 
must of necessity come in. For a testament is of force 
after men are dead ; otherwise it is as yet of no strength 
whilst the testator yet liveth." a 

They could not fail to know that the Church had its 
birth in the cenaculum, and that before the descent of the 
Holy Ghost there was no Church. 

They had read the great oracle, "It is expedient to you 
that I go ; for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to 
you ; but if I go, I will send him to you. But when the 
Paraclete cometh ... he shall give testimony of me ; and 
you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the 
beginning/' b 

Before this solemn mission, therefore, there was no 
Church, nor Sovereign Pontiff, nor Apostolate properly 
so called ; all was in germ, in a state of possible and 
expectative existence, and in this state even the heralds 
of the truth gave proof only of ignorance and weakness. 

Nicole has called attention to this truth in his catechism 
(Catechisme Raisonne) : — " Before having received the 
Holy Ghost," says he, "on the day of Pentecost, the Apostles 

appeared weak in faith, timid in regard to men, &c 

But since Pentecost, we behold only their confidence, their 
joy in sufferings," &c. c 

a Heb. ix. 16 and 17. b John xvi. 7, xv. 26 and 27. 

c Nicole, Instruc. Theol. et Mor. sur les Sacrements. Paris, 
1725. 



CHAP. XV.] INFALLIBILITY DE FACTO. 



79 



We have just heard the truth speak ; we shall now hear 
it thunder : — " Was it not astonishing, miraculous, to be- 
hold the Apostles, the moment they received the Holy 
Ghost, as penetrated with the light of God, as they had 
been until then ignorant and full of errors ... so long as 
they had Jesus Christ alone for their teacher ! 0, adorable, 
unfathomable mystery ; Jesus Christ, all God that he was, 
had not sufficed, it appears, to make them comprehend the 
heavenly doctrine he came to establish on the earth ..... 
' and they understood none of these things/ a Why ? be- 
cause they had not yet received the Spirit of God, and 
because all those truths are such as only the Spirit of God 
can teach. But, at the very moment the Holy Ghost is 
given to them, those truths, which had appeared to them so 
incredible, became clear to them/' &c. b That is to say, 
the testament is opened, and the Church begins. 

If I have insisted on this miserable objection, it is be- 
cause it is the first which presents itself, and because it 
serves admirably to place in its full light the spirit which 
governs this discussion on the part of the adversaries of the 
great prerogative — a spirit of cavil, envious to death of 
being in the right — quite natural, indeed, in every dissen- 
ter, but in Catholics wholly inexplicable. 

The plan of my work does not permit me to discuss one 
by one the pretended errors with which the Popes are re- 
proached ; and the more so, as everything has been said on 
this subject. I shall allude only to the two points which 
have been discussed with the greatest ardour, and which 
appear to me capable of being put in a clearer light ; the 
rest does not merit the honour of being adverted to. 

The Italian doctors have observed that Bossuet, who, in 
his Defence of the Declaration^ had at first argued, like 
all the rest from the fall of Pope Liberius, to establish the 
principal of the four propositions, retrenched the whole 

11 Luke xviii. 34. 

b Bourdaloue, Serm. sur la Pentecote, premiere partie, sur le 
texte : Repleti sunt omnes Spiritu Sancto. — Myst. torn. i. 
e Liv. ix. cap. xxxiv. 



80 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK t 



chapter relating thereto, as may be seen in the edition of 
1745. I am not at present in a position to verify this 
statement, but I have not the least reason to mistrust my 
authors ; and the new History of Bossuet, moreover, leaves 
not the slightest doubt as to the repentance of this great 
man. 

We there read that Bossuet, in the confidence of conver- 
sation, said one day to Abbe Ledieu, "I have effaced from 
my Treatise on Ecclesiastical Power all that regards Pope 
Liber ins, as not proving very well what I intended 
TO establish in that place/' 3 

It was a great misfortune for Bossuet to have to retract 
on such a point ; but he saw that the argument founded on 
Liberius could not be sustained. 

So little could be made of it, indeed, that the Centuria- 
tors of Magdeburg not only did not venture to condemn 
this Pope, but even absolved him. 

<c Liberius," writes St. Athanasius, quoted word for word 
by the Genturiators, (l overcome by the sufferings of two 
years' banishment, and by the threat of punishment, sub- 
scribed at last the condemnation which was required of him ; 
but violence did everything, and the aversion of Liberius 
to heresy is not less undoubted, than that his opinion was 
in favour of Athanasius ; this sentiment he would have 
manifested if he had been free." b St. Athanasius concludes 
with this remarkable sentence: — "Violence proves clearly 
the intention of him who makes another tremble, but by no 
means that of him who trembles," — a maxim decisive in 
this case. 

The Centuriators quote with the same exactness other 

a Tom. ii. Pieces justific. du quatrieme livre, p. 390. 

b Liberium post exactum in exilio biennium, inflexum minisque 
mortis ad subscriptionem contra Athanasium inductum fuisse . . . 
Verum illud ipsum et eorum violentiam et Liberii in haeresim 
odium et suum pro Athanasio suffragium, quum liberos effectus 
haberet, satis coarguit. 

c Quae enim per tormenta contra priorem ejus sententiam ex- 
torta sunt, eo jam non metuentium, sed cogentium voluntates 
habendse sunt. 



CHAP. XV.] 



LIBERIUS. 



81 



writers who show themselves less favourable to Liberius, 
without, however, denying the sufferings of exile. But 
the historians of Magdeburg evidently lean towards the 
opinion of St. Athanasius : — " It appears/' say they, " that 
all that has been related regarding the subscription of Libe- 
rius nowise concerns assenting to the Arian dogma, but 
only the condemnation of Athanasius. 3, That he subscribed 
with his tongue rather than his mind, as Cicero said of the 
oath of some one, is abundantly evident. That* Athanasius 
excused him, clearly proves that he remained firm in the 
profession of the Nicene faith." b 

What a spectacle is not that of Bossuet accusing a Pope 
who stands exculpated by the elite of Calvinism ! Who 
could refrain from applauding the sentiments he confided 
to his secretary ? 

The plan of my work not admitting of details, I refrain 
from inquiring whether the passage of St. Athanasius just 
quoted be open to suspicion in some points — whether the 
fall of Liberius can be denied purely and simply as an 
" ingenious device" c — whether, on the contrary supposi- 
tion, Liberius subscribed the first or the second formula 

* Quanquam haec de subscriptions in Athanasium ad quam 
Liberius impuisus sit, non de consensu in dogmate cum Arianis 
dici videntur. 

b Lingua eum superscripsisse magis quam mente, quod de ju- 
ramento cujusciam Cicero dixit, omnino videtur, quemadmodum 
et Athanasius eum excusavit Constantem certe in professione 
fidei Niceense mansisse indicat. — Centuriae Ecclesiastics Historic 
per aliquos studiosos et pios viros in urbe Magdeburgica et ^asilete 
per Joannem Oporinum, 1562. Cent. iv. c. x. p. 1184. 

c Some learned men have thought this opinion could be held. — 
See Dissert, sur le Pape Libere, dans laquelle on fait voir qu'il 
n'est pas tombe. Paris, chez Lemesle, 1726, in 12mo. Francisci 
Antonii Zacharise P. S. Dissertatio de Commentitio Liberii Lapsu. 
In Thes. Theol. Ven. 1762, in 4to. torn. ii. p. 580, et seq. 

" Ingenious device." We are indebted to a modern controvertist 
of some notoriety for this expression, by Avhich it has been thought 
not inappropriate in the present case to render "fait controuve" 
Every one knows that the words " ingenious device" were made 
use _ of by the champion in question to express, or rather to 
palliate, a manifest forgery. 

G 



82 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



of Sirmium. I shall limit myself to quoting a few lines of 
the learned Archbishop Mansi, who made a collection 
of the Councils ; they will prove, perhaps, to some preju- 
diced minds that " there is a little sound sense within the 
borders of Italy/' 

" Supposing that Pope Liberius did subscribe to Arian- 
ism (which he by no means granted), did he speak on that 
occasion as Pope, ex cathedra ? What Councils did he 
convene previously in order to examine the question ? If 
none, what doctors did he summou around him ? What 
congregations did he institute to define the dogma ? What 
public and solemn prayers did he appoint for invoking the 
aid of the Holy Ghost ? If he did not take these prelimi- 
nary steps, he no longer taught as the master and teacher 
of all the faithful. And when he does not so act, be it 
known to Bossuet, the Roman Pontiff is not acknowledged 
by us to be infallible/' a 

Orsi is still more precise and exacting. b A great num- 
ber of similar testimonies are found in Italian books, sed 
Grwcis incognita, qui sua tantum mirantur. 

The only Pope who can occasion legitimate doubts, less 
on account of his faults than because of the condemnation 
to which he has been subjected, is Honorius. What 
signifies, however, the condemnation of a man and a 
sovereign pontiff, pronounced forty-two years after his 
death ? One of those wretched sophists who too frequently 
dishonoured the patriarchal throne of Constantinople, a 
scourge of the Church and of common sense, Sergius, in 
short, patriarch of C. P., fell upon inquiring, at the com- 
mencement of the seventh century, whether there were two 
wills in Jesus Christ? Determined on maintaining the 
negative, he consulted Pope Honorius in ambiguous terms. 
The Pope, who perceived not the snare, thought that there 

a Sed ita non egit ; non definivit ex cathedra, non docuit tan- 
quam omnium ndelium magister ac doctor. Ubi vero ita non se 
gerat, sciat Bossuet, Romanum Pontificem infallibilem a nobis 
non agnosci. Voy. la note de Mansi, dans l'ouvrage cite, p. 568. 

b Orsi, torn. i. lib. iii. cap. xxiv. p. 118. 



CHAP. XV.] 



HONORIUS. 



83 



was question of two human wills ; that is to say, of the 
double law which afflicts our unfortunate nature, and 
which was certainly wholly foreign to our Saviour. Ho- 
norius, moreover, outstepping, perhaps, the general maxims 
of the Holy See, which dreads, above all things, new ques- 
tions and precipitate decisions, desired that there should be 
no mention of two wills, and wrote in this sense to Sergius. 
By thus proceeding, he may have fallen into what may be 
termed a fault of administration ; for if he was wanting 
in anything on this occasion, it was in regard to the rules 
of government and of prudence. He miscalculated, it may 
be admitted ; he saw not the fatal consequences of the 
measures he considered it fitting and in his power to have 
recourse to ; but in all that he did we discover not any 
derogation from the dogma of the Church, — any theological 
error. That Honorius understood the question as here 
supposed, is at once demonstrated by the direct and irre- 
fragable testimony of the very man whose pen he employed 
in writing his letter to Sergius, — the Abbe John Sympon, 
who, only three years after the death of Honorius, wrote 
thus to the Emperor Constantine, son of Heraclius : — 
" When we spoke of one will in our Lord, we had not in 
view his twofold nature, but only his humanity. Sergius, 
indeed, having maintained that there were in Jesus Christ 
two contrary wills, we said that these two wills, that of the 
flesh and that of the spirit, as in ourselves from original 
sin, could not be recognized in him." a 

And what more decisive can there be than these words 
of Honorius himself, quoted by Saint Maximus : — " There 
is but one will in Jesus Christ ; since, without doubt, the 
Divinity had clothed itself with our nature, but not with 
our sin ; and that thus all carnal thoughts were wholly 
foreign to him/' b 

a See Car. Sardagna Theolog. dogm. polem. in 8vo. 1810, torn. i. 
controv. ix. in Append, de Honorio, No. 305, p. 293. 

b Quia profecto a divinitate assumpta est natura nostra, non 
culpa .... absque carnalibus voluntatibus. (Extract from the 
Letter of Saint Maximus ad Marinum Presbyterum. See Jac. 

G 2 



84 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



If the letters of Honorius had really contained the 
venom of Monothelism, how imagine that Sergius, who had 
taken his stand, would not have made haste to give to his 
writings all the publicity in his power ? This, however, 
he did not do. He concealed, on the contrary, the letters 
(or the letter) of Honorius during the whole lifetime of this 
pontiff, who yet survived two years ; a circumstance which 
must not be overlooked. But immediately after the death 
of Honorius, which happened in 638, the patriarch of 
C. P., no longer under restraint, published his expla- 
nation or ecthesis, so famous in the ecclesiastical history of 
the period. Nevertheless, and this is also very remarkable, 
he quoted not the letters of Honorius. During the forty- 
two years which followed the death of this Pontiff, the Mo- 
nothelites never spoke of the second of these letters ; for 
the good reason, that it was not yet conceded. Pyrrhus, 
even, in the celebrated dispute with St. Maximus, dares 
not maintain that Honorius had imposed silence on the sub- 
ject of one or two operations. He confines himself to saying 
vaguely that this Pope had approved the sentiments of Ser- 
gius on one will only. 

The Emperor Heraclius, exculpating himself, in the year 
641, to Pope John IV., on account of the part he had 
taken in the affair of Monothelism, observes silence with 
regard to these letters, as does also the Emperor Con- 
stans II., in his apology addressed in 619 to Pope Martin, 
on the subject of the type — another imperial folly of that 
period. Now, once more, how can it be imagined that 
these discussions, and so many others of the same descrip- 
tion, should not have induced some public appeal to the 
decisions of Honorius, if they had been looked upon at that 
time as infected with the Monothelite heresy ! 

Let us add, that if this Pontiff had observed silence, 
after Sergius had declared himself, an argument might have 
been taken from his silence, inasmuch as it would have 
been considered a culpable commentary on his letters ; but 

Syrmondi, Soc. Jesu Presbyter, opera varia in fol. ex typog. 
regia, torn. iii. Paris, 1696, p. 481.) 



CHAP. XV.] 



HONORIUS. 



85 



he ceased not, as long as he lived, to raise his voice against 
Sergius, to threaten him, and to condemn him. St. Maxi- 
mus of Constantinople is yet another illustrious witness on 
this interesting fact : 

" We cannot but laugh," says he, " or rather, to speak 
more appropriately, weep over those unfortunate men (Ser- 
gius and Pyrrhus), who dare to quote pretended decisions 
favourable to their impious ecthesis, endeavour to place in 
their ranks the great Honorius, and fortify themselves in 
the eyes of the world with the authority of a man eminent 
in the cause of religion. . . . Who could have inspired 
those forgers with so much audacity ? What pious and 
orthodox man, what bishop, what Church has not conjured 
them to abandon heresy ? And, above all, what has not 
the divine Honorius done ? " a 

Here, it must be owned, we have rather a singular 
heretic ! 

And moreover Pope St. Martin, who died in 655, says, 
in his letter to Arnaud d' Utrecht : " The Holy See has not 
ceased to exhort them (Sergius and Pyrrhus), to warn, to 
reprimand, to threaten them, in order to bring them back 
to the truth which they had betrayed." b Now, chronology 
shows that there can be question here of no other than 

a Quae hos (Monothelitas) non rogavit Ecclesia, &c, quid autem 
et divinus Honorius? (S. Max. Mart. Epist. ad Petrumillustrem, 
apud Syrm. ubi supra, p. 489.) 

Great . attention is necessary to read this letter, of which we 
possess only a Latin translation, executed by a Greek who did 
not know Latin. Not only is the Latin phraseology extremely 
confused, but the translator allows himself, moreover, the privilege 
of fabricating words for his convenience ; as in the following 
phrase for instance : *' Nec adversus apostolicam sedem mentiri 
pigritati sunt," where the verb pigritari is obviously made use of 
to render oicveiv, the Latin equivalent of which did not occur to 
the mind of the translator. He probably did not know the word 
pigror, which, however, is Latin. Pigritor, too, or pigrito, belongs 
to less classical Latin. (De Imitatione Christi, lib. i. cap. xxv. 
No. 8.) 

b Joh. Domin. Mansi Sac. Concil. nov. et ampliss. Collectio. 
Florentiee, 1764, in fol. torn. x. p. 1186. 



86 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



Honorius, since Sergius survived him only two months ; and 
that, after the death of Honorius, the pontifical chair was 
vacant during nineteen months. 

Before writing to the Pope, Sergius wrote to Cyrus of 
Alexandria, "that, for the sake of peace, it appeared 
useful to observe silence on the two wills, on account of the 
twofold danger of shaking, on the one hand, the dogma of 
the two natures, or of opposing two opposite wills in Jesus 
Christ, if profession were made of two wills. 1 ' a 

But where would the contradiction be, if there were not 
question of a twofold human will ? It appears evident, 
therefore, that the discussion first arose on the human will, 
and that there was question only of knowing whether our 
Saviour, in clothing himself with our nature, had subjected 
himself to that double law which is the punishment of ori- 
ginal guilt and the . torment of our life. 

In matters so elevated and so subtle, ideas meet and are 
easily confounded together, if we are not much upon our 
guard. Is it inquired, for instance, without any explana- 
tion, whether there are two wills in Jesus Christ ? It is 
clear that the Catholic can reply yes, or no, without ceasing 
to be orthodox. Yes, if we contemplate the two natures 
united without confusion ; no, if we consider only the hu- 
man nature, exempt, by its august association, from the 
twofold law which degrades us ; no, if there be question 
solely of excluding the twofold human will ; yes, if we 
desire to confess the double nature of the man- God. 

Thus, the word Monothelism, of itself, expresse's not a 
heresy ; we must explain and show what is the subject- 
matter of the word. If it relates to the humanity of our 
Saviour, it is legitimate ; if applied to the person of the 
God-man, it becomes heterodox. 

In reflecting on the words of Sergius, such as we have 
just read them, we feel inclined to believe that, after the 
fashion of all other heretics, he started not from a fixed 

a These are the very words of Sergius in his letter to Honorius. 
— Apud Petrum Ballerinum de vi ac ratione primatus summorum 
Pontificum, &c, Veronee, 1766, in 4to. cap. xv. No. 35, p. 305. 



CHAP. XV.] 



HONORIUS. 



87 



point, and that he had not a very distinct idea of his own 
views, which the keen disputes that afterwards ensued 
served to clear up and determine. 

This same confusion of ideas which we observe in the 
writing of Sergius, had some place in the mind of the Pope, 
who was not prepared. He shuddered on perceiving, even 
indistinctly, the advantage the Greek spirit was about to 
take of this question, once more to unsettle the Church. 
Without pretending to exculpate him altogether, since 
great theologians have thought that he was wrong in em- 
ploying on this occasion too much political wisdom, I ac- 
knowledge, nevertheless, that I am not much astonished he 
should have endeavoured to stifle this dispute at its com- 
mencement. 

However this may be, since Honorius said solemnly to 
Sergius, in his second letter, produced in the sixth council : 
" Take great care you do not publish that I decided any- 
thing as to one or two wills ; " a how can there be question 
of the error of Honorius, who decided nothing ? Surely, to 
be mistaken, one must affirm something. Unfortunately, 
his prudence deceived him more than he could have 
imagined; the question becoming embittered every day 
more and more, in proportion as the. heresy was developed, 
men began to speak harshly of Honorius and his letters. 
At last, forty-two years after his death, these letters are 
produced, in the twelfth and thirteenth sessions of the sixth 
council, and without any defence beforehand, or preliminary 
proceeding whatsoever, Honorius is anathematized, at least 
according to the acts of the council, such as they have 
come down to us. Nevertheless, when a tribunal con- 
demns a man to death, it is customary that it should say 
on what grounds it does so. If Honorius had lived at the 
time of the sixth council, he would have been cited, he 

a Non rtos oportet unam vel duas operationes definientes 
praedicare. — Bailer, loco citato, No. 35, p. 306. It would be su- 
perfluous to call attention to the Greek turn of these expressions, 
translated from a translation. The most precious Latin originals 
have perished. The Greeks wrote what they liked. 



88 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK ti 



would have appeared, he would have adduced in his favour 
the reasons which we are bringing forward to-day, and 
many more besides, which time and the malice of men 
have suppressed . . . But, what do I say ? he would have 
come himself to preside over the council ; he would have 
said to the bishops so desirous of avenging on a Roman 
Pontiff the hideous stains of the patriarchal see of Con- 
stantinople : " My brethren, God abandons you most as- 
suredly, since you presume to judge the chief of the Church, 
who is established judge over yourselves. I need not your 
assembly to condemn Monothelism. What can you say 
which I have not already said ? My decisions suffice to the 
Church. I withdraw from the council, and so dissolve it." 

Honorius, as we have seen, ceased not, till his last 
breath, to profess, to teach, to defend the truth ; to ex- 
hort, to threaten, to reprimand those same Monothelites, 
whose opinions, it is desired to make us believe, he had 
embraced ; Honorius in his second letter (let us take it, 
word for word, as authentic), expresses the dogma in a 
manner which extorted the approbation of Bossuet. a Ho- 
norius died in possession of his see and of his dignity, 
without having ever, since the unfortunate correspondence 
with Sergius, written a line, or uttered a word, which 
history has marked as affording ground for suspicion. His 
remains reposed peacefully, and with honour, in the 
Vatican ; his images continued to shine in the church, and 
his name in the sacred dyptics. A holy martyr, whose 

a But the manner in which he expresses himself is remarkable. 
Bossuet agrees, Honorii verba orthodoxa maxime videri (lib. vii. 
al. xii. Defens. c. xxii.) Jamais homme dans l'univers ne fut 
aussi maitre de sa plume. On croirait, au premier coup d'ceil, 
pouvoir traduire en Francois : V expression oV Honorius semble 
tres-orthodoxe. Mais Ton se tromperait. Bossuet n'a pas dit 
maxime orthodoxa videri ; mais orthodoxa maxime videri. Le max- 
ime frappe sur videri, et non sur orthodoxa. Qu'on essaie de rendre 
cette finesse en Francais. II faudrait pouvoir dire, V expression 
d'Honorius tres-semble orthodoxe. La verite entraine le grand 
homme qui tres-semble lui resister un peu. 

N.B. — The pith of this note would be entirely lost in an 
English version. 



CHAP. XV.] 



HONORIUS. 



89 



relics enrich our altars, called him, soon after his death, a 
divine man. In the eighth general council held at CP.* 
the fathers, that is, the entire East, presided over by the 
Patriarch of CP., profess solemnly that it was not per- 
mitted to forget the promises made to Peter by our Saviour i 
and the truth of which was confirmed by experience, since 
the Catholic faith had always subsisted without stain, 
and the pure doctrine had been taught invariably in the 
Apostolic See* 

Since the affair of Honoring, and on all possible occa- 
sions of which the one just alluded to is the most remark- 
able, the Popes have never ceased to claim this praise, and 
to behold it generally attributed to them. 

After that, I must own I can no longer understand the 
condemnation of Honorius. If some Popes, his successors, 
Leo II. for instance, have appeared not to raise their voice 
against the Hellenisms of Constantinople, we must praise 
their honesty, their modesty, and, above all, their prudence ; 
but all they may have said in this way is by no means dogma- 
tical, and so the facts remain worth what they are worth. 

Everything well considered, the justification of Honorius 
is far from appearing to me the greatest difficulty ; but I 
have no mind to raise the dust, and expose myself to the 
risk of clouding the path. 

If the Popes had frequently laid themselves open to 
attack by hazarding decisions, I should not be astonished 
to hear both sides of the question discussed, and would be 
much inclined, in doubtful cases, to assume the negative, 
for with doubtful arguments we cannot rest satisfied. 

But the Popes, on the contrary, having never ceased, 
during eighteen centuries, to pronounce on all kinds of 
questions with prudence and accuracy truly miraculous, in- 

a Hsec quae dicta sunt rerum probantur effectibus, quia in sede 
apostolica est semper catholica servata religio et sancte celebrata 
doctrina. — Act. I. Syn. 

Vid. Nat. Alexandri dissertatio de Photiano schismate, et viii. 
Syn. C. P. in Thesauro Theologico. Venetiis, 1762, in 4to. 
torn. ii. § xiii. p. 657. 



90 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



asmuch as their decisions have invariably been independent 
of the moral tendency of the passions of the oracle — that 
oracle a man, — a small number of circumstances, more or 
less open to doubt, cannot be construed to the prejudice of 
the Popes without violating all the laws of probability, 
which, nevertheless, must always be held as sovereign 
throughout the world. 

When any power, of what order soever it may be, has 
always acted consistently, and if there should be found a 
very small number of cases in which it may appear to have 
derogated from its custom, we ought not to admit anomalies 
before having endeavoured to bend those phenomena to the 
general rule ; and even though there should not be means 
of perfectly clearing up the problem, we ought never to 
come to any other conclusion than that we are ignorant. 

It is, therefore, very unworthy of a Catholic, a man of 
the world even, to write against this magnificent, this 
divine privilege of the Chair of St. Peter. As to the priest 
who indulges in so great an abuse of talent and erudition, 
he is blind, and worse ; if I am not fearfully deceived, he 
derogates from his character. Even that man who, with- 
out reference to his state of life, should hesitate as to the 
theory, ought always to acknowledge the truth of the fact, 
and agree that the Sovereign Pontiff never fell into error ; 
he ought at least to lean cordially towards this belief, in- 
stead of lowering himself to college wranglings in order to 
shake it. We are tempted to say, in reading certain 
writers of this description, that they are defending a per- 
sonal right against a foreign usurper, whilst in reality there 
is question of a privilege as favourable to them as it is 
well founded — an invaluable gift imparted to the universal 
family as much as to the common father. 

In treating the affair of Honorius, I have not at all 
touched upon the great question of the falsification of the 
acts of the Sixth Council, which authors entitled to respect 
have nevertheless considered proved. Having said enough 
to satisfy every candid and equitable mind, I am not 
obliged to say everything that can be said ; I shall only 



CHAP. XV.] 



THE SIXTH COUNCIL. 



91 



add some reflections, which I believe are not altogether 
useless, on ancient and modern writing. 

Among the mysteries of language, so numerous and so 
profound, may be distinguished that of an unaccountable 
correspondence between each tongue and the characters 
destined to represent it by writing. This analogy is such, 
that the least change in the style of a language is imme- 
diately announced by a change in its writing, although the 
necessity for this change is by no means obvious to reason. 
Examine our language in particular : the handwriting of 
Amyot is as different from that of Fenelon as the style 
of the two writers. Each century may be recognized by its 
writing, because the languages changed ; but when the 
latter become stationary, the writing becomes so likewise ; 
that of the seventeenth century, for instance, still belongs 
to us, with the exception of some slight variations, the 
causes of which are not always perceptible. Thus, in the 
last century, France, having allowed the genius of the 
English to pervade it, there might immediately be recog- 
nized several English forms in the handwriting; of the 
French. The mysterious relation between languages and 
the signs of writing is such, that if a tongue stutters, the 
writing will likewise do so ; and if a language is vague, 
confused, and its syntax difficult, the writing will be pro- 
portionally devoid of elegance and perspicuity. 

What I say here, however, can only be said of current 
writing, that of inscriptions having always been proof 
against arbitrary use and variation ; but the latter, by this 
very reason, has no peculiarity in relation to the person 
who employed it. It is like geometrical figures, of which 
there can be no counterfeit, as they are the same for all. 

The authors of the translation of the New Testament 
called of Mons, observe, in their preliminary notice, that 
the modern tongues are infinitely more clear and fixed than 
the ancient languages* I speak not of Oriental languages, 

a Mons, chez Mignot (Rouen, chez Viret), 1673, in 8vo. Avert, 
p. iii. 



92 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



which are veritable enigmas ; but Greek and Latin even 
justify the truth of this observation. 

Now, by a necessary consequence, modern writing is 
more clear and fixed than ancient. What we call character, 
that something which distinguishes handwritings as well as 
physiognomies, was far less marked and less striking in 
antiquity than amongst us. An ancient who received a 
letter from his best friend could not be quite sure, from the 
mere examination of the writing, whether the letter were 
from that friend. Hence the importance of the seal, which 
was much preferred to the handwriting, or adhibiting of 
the name. a The Latin who said " 1 have signed this 
letter/' signified that the writer had affixed his seal ; the 
same expression amongst us bears that we have added our 
name, whereby the document is shown to be authentic. 5 

From the preference of the seal over the signature arose 
the custom which, now-a-days, appears to us so extraordi- 
nary, of writing letters in the name of an absent person 
who knew nothing of it. It was sufficient to possess 
the seal of such person, which friendship confided without 
difficulty. Cicero presents numerous examples of this kind. c 
He frequently adds also in his letters, " This is from my 
hand," d which supposes that his best friend might doubt 
whether it were. Elsewhere he says to this same friend, 
" I thought I recognized in your letter the hand of Alexis/' e 

a Nosce signum. — Plant. Baccli. iv. 6, 19 ; iv. 9, 62. The stage 
personage does not say : " Recognize the signature, but the sign, 
or the seal" 

b La langue Francaise, si remarquable par l'etonnante propriete 
des expressions, a fait le mot cachet, qu'elle a tire' de cacher, parce 
que le sceau, parmi nous, est destine a cacher, et point du tout a 
authentiquer l'ecriture. C'etait tout le contraire chez les anciens. 

c Tu velim, et Basilio, et quibus praeterea videbitur, etiam Ser- 
vilio conscribas, ut tibi videbitur, meo nomine. — Ad Att. xi. 5 ; 
xii. 19. Quod litteras quibus putas opus esse curas dandas, facis 
commode. — Ibid. xi. 7 ; item xi. 8, 12, &c. 

d Hoc manu mea (xiii. 28, &c). 

e In tuis quoque epistolis Alexin videor cognoscere (xvi. 15). 
(Alexis was the freedman and confidential secretary of Atticus, 
and Cicero was not less acquainted with his writing than with 
that of his friend.) 



CHAP. XV.] THE SIXTH COUNCIL. 



93 



And Brutus, writing from his camp of Vercelli to this same 
Cicero, says to him : " Read first the despatch sent here- 
with, which I address to the senate. You will first read, and 
make therein what changes you shall consider suitable/' a 
Thus a general engaged in war gives his friend charge to 
alter or rewrite an official despatch he addressed to his 
sovereign. This is amusing according to our views ; but let 
us here consider only the material possibility of the thing. 

Cicero having opened, without any breach of politeness, 
a letter of his brother Quintus, in which he thought he 
discovered fearful secrets, puts it into the hands of his 
friend, and says to him, " Forward it to its address if you 
think proper. It is open, but there is no harm ; Pomponia, 
your sister (wife of Quintus), is no doubt in possession of 
her husband's seal/' b 

I have nothing to say as to the morality of this amiable 
family ; the fact is all we have to deal with. There was 
no question, as we see, of the character of the handwriting, 
nor of the signature; this disgusting robbery, which did 
no harm, was executed without the least difficulty by means 
of a mere impression. 

I say not, however, that every one had not his peculiar 
character ; c but it was much less determined, much less 
exclusive than in our times ; it came nearer to the style of 

a Ad senatum quas litteras misi velim prius perlegas, et si qua 
tibi videbuntur commutes. — Brutus Ciceroni, Fam. xi. 19. 

b Quas (litteras) si putabis illi ipsi utile esse reddi, reddes ; nil 
me laedet : nam quod resignatse sunt, habet, opinor, ejus signum 
Pomponia. — Ad Att. xi. 9. 

c Signum requirent aut manum ; dices iis me propter custo- 
dias eas vitasse. — Ad Att. xi. 2. The seal or the engraved cha- 
racter was of such importance, that the forger of a false seal was 
punished by the law Cornelia, on the making of false wills, as if 
he had counterfeited a signature.- — 1 Leg. 30, dig. de lege Corn, 
de fals. 

It appears that by this word, false seal (signum adulterinum), 
must be understood every seal made for one who had no right to 
male use of it, so that an engraver was bound nearly to the same 
precautions as are imposed on locksmiths of whom some unknown 
party orders a key. If it is not to be thus understood, I do not 



94 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



inscriptions, which changes not, and lends itself conse- 
quently without difficulty to every kind of falsification. 

From the vagueness which prevailed in the current signs, 
as well as from the want of morality and delicacy in regard 
to the respect due to writings, arose an immense facility, 
and consequently an immense temptation, to falsify docu- 
ments. 

And this facility was increased to the highest degree by. 
the very nature of the materials used for writing ; for if 
one wrote on tables done over with wax, it was only neces- 
sary to turn the stylus? to alter, efface, substitute with 
impunity. If one wrote on skins (in membranis), it was 
still worse, so easy was it to scrape out or efface. What 
is there better known to antiquaries than those wretched 
palimpsestes, which are still in our day a subject of grief, 
showing as they do masterpieces of antiquity effaced or 
destroyed to make room for legends or family tales ? 

Printing has rendered absolutely impossible, in our age, 
the falsification of those important acts in which sovereign- 
ties and nations are interested ; and as to private deeds 
even, the masterpiece of a forger is limited to a line, and 
sometimes to a word altered, suppressed, interposed, &c. 
The most guilty and most skilful hand finds itself para- 
lyzed by the nature of our writing, and particularly so 
likewise by our admirable paper — remarkable gift of Provi- 
dence, which joins by an extraordinary alliance duration 
with fragility, imbibes the thoughts of men, permits them 
not to be altered without leaving traces of the alteration, 
and only suffers them to escape as it perishes. 

A testament or codicil, or any contract whatever, forged 
all through, is at this day a phenomenon which an aged 
magistrate may have never witnessed ; among the ancients 
it was a vulgar crime, as may be seen in merely glancing 
at the Justinian code, under the head of forgery} 

see very well what a counterfeit seal is. Is it possible to make 
one without counterfeiting it ? 

a Ssepe stylum vertas. — Hor. 

b De lege Corn, de falsis. — Cod. lib. ix. tit. xxii. 



CHAP. XVI.] ANSWER TO SOME OBJECTIONS. 95 

From these causes taken together, it follows, that as 
often as a suspicion of falsehood attaches to any monument 
of antiquity, in whole or in part, such presumption ought 
never to he overlooked ; but if any violent passion of re- 
venge, or hatred, or national pride, &c. be duly accused and 
convicted of having an interest in the falsification, the sus- 
picion becomes certainty. 

If any reader had the curiosity to weigh the doubts 
raised by some writers with regard to the acts of the Sixth 
General Council and of the letters of Honorius, he would 
do well, I conceive, to bear always in mind the reflections 
I have just committed to paper. For my own part, I have 
not time to apply to the examination of this superfluous 
question. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

ANSWER TO SOME OBJECTIONS. 

It is idle to raise the cry of despotism. Are despotism 
and a mixed monarchy, then, all the same thing ? Leav- 
ing aside the question of dogma, let us consider the mat- 
ter only in a political point of view. The Pope in this 
respect claims no other infallibility than is attributed to 
all sovereigns. I should like to know what objection the 
great genius of Bossuet could have suggested to him 
against the absolute supremacy of the Popes, which minds 
of the most slender ability could not have at once re- 
torted, and with advantage too, against Louis XIV. 

" No pretext, no cause whatsoever, can authorize re- 
bellion ; we must revere the appointment of heaven, and 
the character of the Most High, in all princes, whoever 
they may be ; since the most glorious days of the Church 
represent them to us as sacred and inviolable, even in 
the persons of those who persecuted religion. ... In 
those cruel persecutions which she suffers without mur- 
muring during so many ages, combating for Jesus Christ, 



96 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



I dare to say it, she does battle no less for the autho- 
rity of the princes by whom she is persecuted. ... Is 
it not fighting for legitimate authority to suffer everything 
at its hands without a murmur f " a 

Bravo ! The last stroke particularly is admirable. But 
why should the great man refuse to transfer to the divine 
monarchy those same maxims which he declared to be 
sacred and inviolable in the temporal monarchy ? If any 
one had desired to assign limits to the power of the king 
of France, had cited against him certain ancient laws, had 
declared that men were, indeed, willing to obey him, but 
required that he should govern according to the laws, — 
how loudly would not the author (Bossuet) of " La Po- 
litique sacree " have exclaimed against such doctrine ! 

"The prince/' says he, "is not bound to account to 
any one for what he commands. Without this absolute 
authority, he can neither do good nor prevent evil ; his 
power must be such, that none can hope to escape from 
him. . . . When the prince has judged, there is no fur- 
ther judgment ; this is what made Ecclesiasticus say : 
' Judge not in opposition to the judge,' and still more so, a 
in opposition to the sovereign judge, who is the king ; 
and the reason he adduces is, £ because he judges accord- 
ing to justice/ Not that he always so judges, but that 
he is reputed so to judge, and that no one has a right 
to judge or to revise after him. We must therefore obey 
princes as justice itself, without which there is. neither 
order nor end to their affairs. . . . The prince can set 
himself right when he knows that he has done wrong ; 

a Sermon sur l'unite, I er point. — Plato and Cicero, both writing 
under a republican government, advance as an incontestable 
maxim, " that if we cannot persuade the people, we have no right to 
force them." The maxim is the same in all governments ; we 
have only to change the names. Tantum contende in monarchic 
quantum principi tuo praebere potes. Quum persuaderi princeps 
nequit, cogi fas esse non arbitror." — Cicer. ad Fam. i. 9. " When 
the prince cannot be persuaded, I do not think it lawful to coerce 
him." 



CHAP. XVI.] ANSWER TO SOME OBJECTIONS. 97 

but, against his authority, there can be no other remedy 
than his authority/' a 

At present I contest nothing with the illustrious author ; 
I only ask him to judge according to the laws which he 
himself has laid down. It does not by any means show 
want of respect to fight him with his own weapons. 

The obligation imposed on the Sovereign Pontiff to 
judge only according to the canons, if laid down as a con- 
dition of obedience, is a puerility, alleged solely to amuse 
the puerile or calm the rebellious. As there can be no 
judgments without a judge, if the Pope can be judged, 
who shall be his judge ? Who will tell us that he has 
judged according to the canons, and who will force him 
to follow them f The discontented Church apparently, or 
her civil tribunals, or her temporal sovereign ? Behold us, 
then, at once plunged into anarchy, confusion of powers, 
and absurdities of every kind. 

The excellent author of the " History of Fenelon " in- 
forms me, in the panegyric of Bossuet, and according to 
the views of that great man, that, conformably to Gal- 
lican maxims, a judgment of the Pope in matter of faith 
can only be published in France after being solemnly ac- 
cepted, in a formal and canonical manner, and with full 
freedom, by the archbishops and bishops of the kingdom^ 

Always some enigma ! Is a dogmatical bull, not pub- 
lished in France, without authority in France ? And 
could a proposition, declared heretical by a dogmatical de- 
cision of the Pope, confirmed by the consent of the whole 
Church, be maintained with a sound conscience ? Are the 
French bishops entitled to reject the decision, if they re- 
solve on not approving it ? By what right can the Church 
of France — which, it cannot be too often repeated, is no- 
thing else than a province of the Catholic monarchy — 
have, in matter of faith, other maxims and other privi- 
leges than the rest of the Churches ? 

a Polit. tiree de PEcriture, in 4to. Paris, 1809, pp. 118, 120. 
b Hist, de Bossuet, torn. iii. liv. x. No. 31, p. 340. Paris, 1815, 
4 vols, in 8vo. The words in italics are Bossuet's. 

H 



98 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



It was worth while to clear up these questions ; and, 
in such cases, it is a duty to be candid. There is ques- 
tion of the dogmas, of the essential constitution of the 
Church, and we hear pronounced in an oracular tone (I 
allude to Bossuet) maxims evidently calculated to throw 
a veil over difficulties, to disturb delicate consciences, to 
embolden the ill-intentioned. Fenelon was more distinct 
when he said, in his own cause : " The Sovereign Pontiff 
has spoken ; all discussion is forbidden the bishops ; they 
ought purely and simply to accept the decree/'' a 

Such is the language of Catholic reason, the unanimous 
voice of all our sincere and unbiassed theologians. But 
when one of the greatest men that ever flourished in the 
Church proclaims this fundamental maxim, on an occasion 
so terrible to human pride, and when he had such ample 
means of defence, is one of the most magnificent and most 
encouraging spectacles which intrepid wisdom ever presented 
to weak human nature. 

Fenelon perceived that he could not resist without shak- 
ing the great principle of unity ; and his submission refutes 
better than our reasonings all the sophistry of pride, under 
what name soever it may be disguised. 

We have just seen the centuriators of Magdeburg de- 
fending, by anticipation, the Pope against Bossuet. Let 
us now hear the semi- Protestant compiler of the liberties 
of the Gallican Church likewise affording us an antici- 
pated refutation of the pretended maxims which destroy 
unity : 

" The particular maxims of each Church/' says he, 
" cannot be in force except in the ordinary course of 
things ; the Pope is sometimes above these rules, for the 

* "The Pope having judged this cause (Maxims of the Saints), 
the bishops of the province, although the natural judges of doc- 
trine, cannot, in the present assembly, and in the circumstances 
of this particular case, pronounce any other judgment than one of 
simple adherence to that of the Holy See, and of acceptance of 
its constitution." 

Fenelon to his provincial assembly of bishops, 1699. In the 
Memoires du Clerge, torn. i. p. 461. 



CHAP. XVI.] ANSWER TO SOME OBJECTIONS. 99 

knowledge and judgment of great causes concerning faith 
and religion/' a 

Fleury, who may be considered an intermediary person- 
age between Pithou and Bellarmin, holds precisely the 
same language : " When there is question/' says he, " of 
causing the canons to be observed, and of maintaining the 
rules, the power of the Popes is sovereign — quite above 
every other/' b 

Let them now come, and cite to us the maxims of a 
particular Church, on occasion of a sovereign decision 
pronounced on a matter of faith ! It were a mockery of 
common sense. 

The idea is ludicrous, that, whilst the bishops should 
arrogate to themselves the right of examining freely a de- 
cision of Rome, the magistrates should on their side main- 
tain the necessity of a preliminary registration (puis les gens 
du roi), so that the Sovereign Pontiff would be judged, not 
only by his inferiors, whose decisions he has a right to set 
aside, but also by lay authority, to which it would belong 
to hold the faith of Christians in suspense as long as it 
might think proper. 

I shall conclude this portion of my observations by a new 
citation from a French theologian ; the passage is replete 
with wisdom, which must strike every mind : 

" It is only," says he, " an apparent contradiction to say 
that the Pope is above the canons, or that he is subject to 
them ; that he is the master of the canons, or that he is 
not. Those who, placing him above the canons, make him 
master of them, pretend only that he can dispense with 
them ; and those who deny that he is above the canons, or 
that he is master of them, mean only to say that he can 
only dispense with them for the utility and the necessities 
of the Church." c 

a Pierre Pithou, XLVI e art. de sa redaction. This writer was 
a Protestant, and was not converted till after the affair of St. Bar- 
tholomew's day. 

b Fleury, Disc, sur les Libertes de 1'Eglise Gallicane. Nouv. 
opusc. p. 34. 

c Thomassin, Discipline de 1'Eglise, torn. v. p. 295. Elsewhere, 
H 2 



100 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



I know not what good sense could add to, or take away 
from, this doctrine — equally opposed to despotism and to 
anarchy. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

OF INFALLIBILITY IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM. 

All the reflections I have penned hitherto I intend 
should be addressed to those systematic Catholics of whom 
there are so many at the present time, and I cherish the 
hope that they will produce, sooner or later, an invincible 
opinion. I now address myself to the multitude — still too 
numerous, alas ! — of enemies and indifferent people, parti- 
cularly to those of their number who are statesmen, and I 
say to them, " What do you aim at, and what are your 
pretensions ? Do you mean that the people everywhere 
should live without religion, and do you not begin to under- 
stand that it is necessary ? Does not Christianity, both 
on account of its intrinsic worth, and because it is in 
possession, appear to you preferable to every other ? Have 
you been satisfied with the attempts made in this way, and 
do the Twelve Apostles please you less, perchance, than the 
Theophilanthropists or the Martinists ? Does the Sermon 
on the Mount appear to you a passable code of morality ? 
And if the entire people came to regulate its morals on this 
model, would you be content ? I think I hear you answer 
in the affirmative. Well, since there is only question of 
maintaining this religion which you prefer, how would you 
be, I say not so unskilful, but so cruel, as to make it a 
democracy, and intrust this precious deposit to the hands 
of the multitude ? You attribute the greatest importance 
to the dogmatical part of religion ; by what strange con- 
tradiction would you, then, agitate the world, for a mere 

he adds, with the like wisdom : " Nothing is more conformable 
to the canons than the violation of the canons, caused by a greater 
good than the observation of the canons" (liv. ii. ch. 58, No. 6). 
He could not have thought or spoken more to the purpose. 



CHAP. XVIII.] REASONABLENESS OF INFALLIBILITY. 101 

college trifle, for pitiful disputes (I use your own language) 
about words ? Is it thus that men are led ? Will you 
summon together the Bishops of Quebec and Lucon to in- 
terpret a line of the catechism ? That believers should 
dispute about infallibility is a thing I know, because I be- 
hold it, but that a statesman should likewise dispute about 
this great privilege, I never can understand. How, if he 
thinks that there is opinion, should he not endeavour to 
fix it ? How should he not choose the most ready means 
of preventing it from going astray ? That all the bishops 
of the universe should be convoked to decide upon a truth 
which is divine and necessary to salvation, is most natural, 
if such a measure be indispensable ; for no effort, no trouble, 
no difficulty, ought to be spared in the attainment of so 
great an end ; but, if there is question only of establishing 
one opinion in place of another, the mere postage charges 
on account of one alone infallible, are a signal folly. In 
order to save the two most precious things in the world — 
time and money, — make haste to write to Rome, to bring 
from it a legal decision, which shall declare doubt illegal. 
This is all you want ; policy requires no more/'' 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

NO DANGER IN THE CONSEQUENCES OF A RECOGNIZED 
SUPREMACY. 

Read the books of Protestants : you will there find in- 
fallibility represented as a fearful despotism which enthrals 
the human mind, which crushes it, deprives it of its facul- 
ties, which commands it to believe, and forbids it to think. 
The prejudice against this idle scarecrow has been carried 
to such a height, that we find Locke seriously maintaining 
that Catholics believe in the real presence on the faith of the 
Popes infallibility? 

a ie Let the idea of infallibility, and that of a certain person, come 
to be inseparably united in the minds of some men, and you will 



102 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK t. 



France has, in no slight degree, increased the evil by 
becoming in a great measure an accomplice in these extra- 
vagances. Germany has also lent the aid of its exaggera- 
tions. In short, there has been formed beyond the Alps, 
in regard to Rome, an opinion so strong, although exceed- 
ingly erroneous, that it is no easy enterprise to bring men 
to understand merely what there is question of. This for- 
midable jurisdiction of the Pope over the mind is confined 
within the limits of the Apostles' Creed ; the circle, as 
every one knows, is not immense, and the human mind 
has quite enough whereon to exercise itself beyond this 
sacred perimeter. 

As to discipline, it is either general or local. The first 
is not very extensive ; for there are few points absolutely 
general and which may not be altered, without any danger 
to what is essential in religion. The second depends on 
particular circumstances, on localities, privileges, &c. But 
it is matter of notoriety, that on both the former and the 
latter points, the Holy See has always given proof of the 
greatest condescension towards all the churches ; frequently 
even, and almost always, it has gone beyond their wants 
and their desires. What interest could the Pope have to 
give needless vexation to the nations united in his com- 
munion ? 

There is, moreover, in the genius of the people of the 
West, an indescribably exquisite sense, — a delicate and un- 
erring tact, — which proceeds at once to the essence of things, 
neglecting everything else. This is seen chiefly in the re- 
ligious forms or rites, in regard to which the Roman Church 
has always shown all imaginable condescension. It has 
pleased God, for instance, to attach the work of human re- 
soon behold them swallowing the dogma of the simultaneous 
presence of the same body in two different places, without other 
authority than that of the infallible person who commands them 
to believe without examination." — Locke on the Human Un- 
derstanding, book ii. chap, xxxiii. sec. xvii. French readers 
ought to be apprized that this passage is only to be found in the 
English text. Coste, although a Protestant, considering the ob- 
servation too silly, refused to translate it. 



CHAP. XVIII.] RECOGNIZED SUPREMACY. 103 

generation to the sensible sign of water, for reasons by no 
means arbitrary, but, on the contrary, very profound, and 
altogether worth being inquired into. We profess this 
dogma in common with all Christians, but we consider that 
there is water in a cruet as well as in the Pacific Ocean, 
and that everything depends on the mutual contact of 
water and man, accompanied by certain sacramental words. 
Other Christians pretend that for this rite a basin at least 
is indispensable ; that if a man goes into the water he is 
certainly baptized, bat that if water falls upon man, the 
result becomes doubtful. On this head may be said to 
them what an Egyptian priest addressed to them two 
thousand years ago, You are but children I After all, 
they are masters of their choice ; nobody interferes with 
them. If they desired a river even, like the English 
Baptists, they would be allowed the privilege. One of 
the principal mysteries of the Christian religion has bread 
for its essential matter. Now a wafer is bread, as well as 
the most bulky loaf that ever was baked ; we have, there- 
fore, adopted the tvafer. Do other Christian nations believe 
that there is no other bread properly so called than that 
which we eat at table, nor any real manducation without 
mastication ? We respect exceedingly this oriental rea- 
soning, and quite sure that those who employ it to-day 
will gladly do as we do, as soon as they have attained the 
same degree of certainty. It does not even occur to us to 
disturb them. Whilst we are satisfied to retain for our- 
selves the light unleavened bread, which has in its favour 
the analogy of the ancient Pasch, that of the first Christian 
Pasch, and the propriety, greater perhaps than is supposed, 
of devoting a particular kind of bread to the celebration of 
such a mystery. 

Do these same sticklers for immersion and leavened 
bread, by erroneous interpretation of the scriptures, and 
from obvious ignorance of human nature, maintain that 
the sacred tie of marriage is dissolved by its profanation, 
which is in fact a formal exhortation to guilt. We have 
not chosen to have any cavilling with our adversaries, even 



104 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



whilst they obstinately persist ; and on the most solemn 
occasion we simply said to them, " We shall pass you over 
in silence ; but in the name of reason and peace say not 
that we understand nothing of the matter/ ,& 

After these instances, and so many others that might be 
adduced, what nation can fear for its particular privileges 
on account of the Roman supremacy? The Pope will never 
refuse to listen to all, nor will he deny satisfaction to the 
rulers of the world in anything that is in a Christian sense 
possible. There is no pedantry at Rome ; and if there 
were anything to fear as regards condescension, I should be 
inclined to dread excess rather than deficiency. 

Notwithstanding these assurances, derived from consi- 
derations that are quite decisive, I doubt not but prejudice 
will still hold out ; I make no doubt even but very shrewd 
minds will exclaim, " But if nothing checks the Pope, 
where will he stop ? History shows us how he can use this 
power ; what guarantee is given us that the same events 
will not be reproduced f 3 

To this objection, which will undoubtedly be made, I 
answer first, in general, that the examples taken from his- 
tory against the Popes are of no value, and ought not to 
inspire the least dread for the future, because they belong 
to quite another order of things from that with which we 
are conversant. The power of the Popes was excessive in 
regard to us when it was necessary that it should be so, 
and that nothing in the world could supply its place. This 
I hope to prove in the course of this work, in a way that 
must satisfy every impartial judge. 

In the next place, dividing in idea those men who 
honestly fear the enterprises of the Popes into two classes, 
that consisting of Catholics, and that composed of all those 
who are not Catholics, I say to the first, " By what blind- 
ness, by what ignorant and culpable mistrust, do you look 
upon the Church as a human edifice, of which it may be 

a Si quis dixerit Ecclesiam errare cuin docuit et docet. — Con- 
cil. Trident, sess. xxiv. De Matrimonio, can. vii. 



CHAP. XVIII.] RECOGNIZED SUPREMACY. 105 

said, Who will sustain it ? and its chief as an ordinary 
man, of whom it can be said, Who will preserve him f" This 
is a distraction common indeed, yet by no means excusable. 
Never will any inordinate pretension be entertained by the 
Holy See ; never will injustice and error be able to take 
root there, and abuse the faith of mankind to the profit of 
ambition. 

As to those who by birth or by system are without the 
Catholic circle, if they address to me the same question, 
What can check the Pope f I will answer, Everything — 
the canons, the laws, the customs of nations, sovereignties, 
the great tribunals, national assemblies, prescription, re- 
presentations, negotiations, duty, fear, prudence, and, above 
all, opinion, which rules the world. 

Thus let me not be made to say that I would, there- 
fore, make the Pope an universal monarch. Assuredly I 
desire nothing of the kind, whilst I am nowise astonished 
to hear this therefore always a ready argument when all 
others are wanting. But as the very serious faults certain 
princes have been guilty of against religion and its chief 
by no means derogate from the respect I owe to temporal 
monarchy, the possible offences of a Pope against this same 
sovereignty will not hinder me from acknowledging it for 
what it is. All the powers of the universe set limits to one 
another by their mutual resistance. It has not been the 
will of God to establish greater perfection on the earth, 
although in one way he has given marks sufficiently dis- 
tinct to make his hand be recognized. There is not in the 
world any one power in a position to bear all possible and 
arbitrary suppositions ; and, if they are judged by what 
they can do (without allusion to what they have done)^ 
they must all be abolished. 



106 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT : FURTHER EXPLANA- 
TIONS IN REGARD TO INFALLIBILITY. 

How liable are not men to blind themselves as regards 
the most simple ideas ! The essential thing for every 
nation is, to preserve its particular discipline, that is to 
say, those usages which, without being connected with 
dogma, constitute, nevertheless, a portion of its public law, 
and have been for a long time amalgamated with the cha- 
racter and the laws of the nation, so that they cannot be 
touched without causing disturbance and serious discontent. 
Now, those usages and those particular laws it may defend 
with respectful firmness if ever (and this is merely a sup- 
position, for the sake of argument,) the Holy See under- 
took to derogate from them, all being agreed that the Pope, 
and even the Church together with him, may be deceived 
in regard to everything that is not dogma or fact connected 
therewith ; so that, on everything in which are interested 
patriotism, affections, customs, and, to say all in one word, 
national pride, no nation ought to dread the Pope's infal- 
libility, which is applicable only to objects of a higher 
order. 

As to dogma, properly so called, it is precisely on this 
point that we have no interest to call in question the in- 
fallibility of the Pope. Should there occur one of those 
questions of divine metaphysics which must necessarily be 
referred to the decision of the supreme tribunal, it concerns 
not our interests that it be decided in such or such a way, 
but that a decision be pronounced without delay and without 
appeal. In the celebrated affair of Fenelon, — of twenty 
examinators at Rome, ten were for him and ten against 
him. In a general council, five or six hundred bishops 
might likewise have been divided. 

Those who believe that by multiplying deliberative voices 
doubt is diminished, know little of human nature, and have 



CHAP. XIX.] FURTHER EXPLANATIONS. 



107 



never sat in the midst of a deliberative body. The Popes 
have condemned several heresies in the course of eighteen 
centuries. When were they contradicted by an oecumenical 
council % Not one instance can be alleged. Never were 
their dogmatical bulls opposed, except by those whom they 
condemned. The Jansenist fails not to call that which 
struck him down " the too famous bull, Unigenitus;" whilst 
Luther discovered, no doubt, that the bull "Earnrge, Do- 
mine," was also " too famous" We have been often told 
that general councils are useless, since they hate never 
reclaimed any one. This observation Sarpi has thought 
proper to place at the head of his History of the Council of 
Trent. The remark is undoubtedly not to the purpose ; 
for, the principal end of councils is by no means to reclaim 
innovators, whose invincible obstinacy was never unknown, 
but to show they were in the wrong, and to tranquillize the 
minds of the faithful by a solemn dogmatical decision. 

The resipiscence of dissentients is a result more than 
doubtful, which the Church ardently desires, but scarcely 
hopes for. However, I allow the objection, and I say, 
" Since general councils are neither useful to us who believe, 
nor to innovators who refuse to believe, why convene them f" 

Despotism over thought, with which the Popes are so 
much reproached, is a mere chimera. Suppose that in our 
days it be asked in the Church, Whether there be one or two 
natures, one or two persons in the Man- God f whether his 
body be contained in the Eucharist, by transubstantiation 
or by impanation ? fyc, where is the despotism which says 
yes or no on these questions ? Would not the council 
which should decide them impose a yoke on thought no less 
than the Pope ? Independence will always complain of the 
one as well as of the other. All appeals to councils are 
only inventions of the spirit of revolt, which ceases not to 
invoke the council against the Pope, with no other view 
than to laugh at the council also as soon as it shall have 
spoken as the Pope. a 

a " We believe that it is allowed to appeal from the Pope to 
a future council, notwithstanding the bulls of Pius II. and 



108 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



Everything recalls us to the great truths already estab- 
lished. No human society can exist without government, 
nor government without sovereignty, nor sovereignty with- 
out infallibility ; and this last privilege is so absolutely 
necessary, that we are obliged to suppose infallibility, even 
in temporal sovereignties (where it is not), on pain of be^ 
holding society dissolved. The Church requires nothing 
more than other sovereignties, although it possesses an im- 
mense superiority over them, inasmuch as infallibility is on 
the one hand humanly supposed, and on the other divinely 
promised. This indispensable supremacy can only be ex- 
ercised by one organ ; to divide it is to destroy it. Even 
though these truths should be less incontestable than they 
are, it would always be indisputable that every dogmatical 
decision of the Holy Father ought to be law until the 
Church make opposition to it. When this phenomenon 
occurs, we shall see what must be done ; meanwhile, there is 
no other course for us than to abide by the judgment of 
Rome. This necessity is invincible, because it arises from 
the nature of things and the very essence of sovereignty. 
The Gallican Church has presented more than one precious 
example in this respect. Induced, sometimes by false 
theories and by certain local circumstances, to assume an 
attitude of apparent opposition to the Holy See, it was 
speedily brought back by the force of things to the ancient 

Julius II., who have forbidden it ; but such appeals ought to be 
very rare, and only for the most weighty reasons."— Fleury, 
Nouv. opusc. p. 52. 

In the first place, here is a " we" of which the Catholic Church 
ought to make very little account ; and besides, what is a most 
weighty occasion ? what tribunal will decide upon it ? and, in the 
meantime, what will it be our duty to do or to believe'? Councils 
ought to be established as a regular ordinary tribunal above the 
Pope, in opposition to what Fleury himself says in the very same 
page. It is, indeed, a very strange thing to see Fleury refuted by 
Mosheim on a point of such importance (sup. p. 7), as we have 
beheld a Bossuet on the point of being led into the right way by 
the Centuriators of Magdeburg. (Sup. p. 81.) To what lengths 
are not men carried by the ambition to say we — that pronoun so 
portentous in theology ! 



CHAP. XX.] THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 



109 



ways. But lately, even, some of its chiefs, whose names, 
whose doctrine, whose noble sufferings I infinitely respect, 
made Europe resound with their complaints against the 
pilot whom they accused of having manoeuvred in a gale, 
without taking counsel of them. For a moment they may 
have alarmed the timid Christian, 

Res est soliciti plena timoris amor ; 

but when at last a decisive resolution was adopted, the 
immortal spirit of that great Church, surviving, as is the 
order of things, the dissolution of the body, soared above 
the heads of those illustrious malcontents, and all ended by 
silence and submission ! 



CHAPTER XX. 

OBSERVATIONS ON DISCIPLINE CONCLUDED : DIGRESSION ON 
THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 

I have said that from this Pontifical supremacy, por- 
trayed as it is in such false colours, no Catholic nation had 
anything to fear for its particular and legitimate usages. 
But, if the Popes owe paternal condescension to those 
usages which are impressed with the seal of a venerable 
antiquity, the nations, on the other hand, ought to remem- 
ber that local differences are almost always more or less 
bad as often as they are not absolutely necessary, and for 
this reason, that they arise from isolation and the indulging 
of individual notions — two things intolerable in the Catholic 
economy. As the gait, the gestures, the language, and 
even the dress of a sensible man proclaim his character, so 
also must the never- changing character of the Catholic 
Church become manifest by her outward appearance. But 
who shall impart to it this character of stability if it obey 
not a sovereign chief, and if each church may follow its 
particular fancies ? Is it not to the peculiar influence of a 
supreme chief that the Church owes this unique character, 



110 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



which strikes the least clear-sighted beholders ? And is it 
not indebted to him especially for that Catholic language — 
the same for all who hold a common belief? It occurs to 
me that, in his book " On the Importance of Religious 
Opinions," M. Necker said, " that it is at last time to in- 
quire of the Roman Church why she persists in making use 
of an unknown tongue/' &c. It is at last time, on the 
contrary, to speak to her no more on this subject, or to 
speak of it only in order to recognize therein and extol her 
profound wisdom. What a sublime idea is not that of an 
universal language for the universal Church ! From pole 
to pole the Catholic who enters a church of his rite is at 
home, and nothing appears to him strange. The moment 
he arrives, he hears what he has been accustomed to hear 
all his life ; he can mingle his voice with that of his 
brethren. He understands them ; he is understood by 
them ; he can exclaim — 

" Rome is all in all places, she is all where I am." 

The brotherhood resulting from a common tongue is a 
mysterious bond, the strength of which is immense. In 
the ninth century, John VIII., a too facile pontiff, had 
granted to the Sclavonian people leave to celebrate the 
Divine office in their own language ; at which, no doubt, 
those will be astonished who have read the 195th Letter 
of this pontiff, in which he acknowledges the inconveniences 
of such toleration. Gregory VII. withdrew this permission ; 
but it was too late as regarded the Russians, and it is well 
known what it cost this great people. If the Latin tongue 
had once taken its place at Kief, Novogorod, at Moscow, it 
never would have been dethroned — never would the illus- 
trious Sclavonians, intimately allied to Rome by their lan- 
guage, have been thrown into the arms of those degraded 
Greeks of the low country empire, whose history excites 
pity when it does not inspire horror. 

There is nothing equal in dignity to the Latin tongue. It 
was spoken by the sovereign people ("populum late regein"), 
who stamped it with that character of grandeur which 



CHAP. XX.] 



THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 



Ill 



stands alone in the history of human language, and which 
even the most perfect tongues have never been able to ap- 
propriate. The term majesty belongs to the Latins. Greece 
possesses it not. And because of majesty alone did it re- 
main inferior to Rome in letters as well as in arms. a Born 
to command, this language still commands in the books of 
those who spoke it. It is the language of the Roman con- 
querors, and that of the missionaries of the Roman Church. 
Those men differ only by the object and the result of their 
action. The aim of the former was no other than to en- 
slave, subdue, and devastate the world ; the latter came to 
enlighten, to restore, to save mankind ; but in either case 
there was question of victory and conquest, and on the 
one hand and on the other the same power extending its 
dominion : — 

. . . Ultra Garamantas et Indos 
Proferet imperium .... 

Trajan, who directed the expiring efforts of the Pagan 
power of Rome, was unable, nevertheless, to carry his lan- 
guage beyond the Euphrates. The Roman Pontiff has 
made it to be heard in the Indies, in China, and Japan. 

It is the language of civilization. Mingled with that of 
our barbarian forefathers, it succeeded in refining, soften- 
ing, and (so to speak) spiritualizing those uncouth idioms 
which have become what we now behold them. Armed 
with this language, the envoys of the Roman Pontiff went 
in search of those people who no longer came to them. The 
latter first heard it spoken the day of their baptism, and 
they have never since forgotten it. Cast a glance at a map 
of the world, trace thereon the line where this universal 
language is no longer heard : that line is the boundary of 
European civilization and fraternity. Beyond, you will 

* Fatale id Graeciae videtur, et cum majestatis ignoraret no- 
men, sola hac quemadmodum in castris, ita in poesi csederetur. 
Quod quid sit, ac quanti, nec intelligent qui alia non pauca 
sciunt, nec ignorant qui Graecorum scripta cum judicio legerunt. 
— Dan. Heinsii Ded. ad filium, at the head of the Elzevir Virgil, 
in 16mo. 1636. 



112 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



find only the ties of human relationship, which fortunately 
exists everywhere. The Latin language is the mark of 
Europe. Medals, coins, trophies, tombs, primitive annals, 
laws, canons — all monuments speak Latin. Must all these, 
then, be effaced, or no longer understood ? Last century, 
which vented its rage against everything sacred or vene- 
rable, failed not to declare war on Latin. The French, 
arbiters of fashion, almost entirely forgot this language ; 
they even forgot themselves so far, as to make it disappear 
from their coin ; and they seem not yet to have thought of 
this transgression committed at once against the common 
sense of Europe, good taste, and religion. The English, 
even, although wisely attached to their usages, begin also 
to imitate France ; such imitation, if I am not mistaken, 
occurs among them oftener than is believed, and more fre- 
quently than they themselves believe. Examine the pedes- 
tals of their modern statues : you will there find, no more, 
the severe taste which engraved the epitaphs of Newton 
and of Christopher Wren. Instead of that noble Laconism, 
you will read histories in the vulgar tongue. The monu- 
mental marble doomed to babble, weeps over the lost lan- 
guage of which it held that beautiful style, which had a 
name among all other styles, and which, from the stone 
where it was established, went to plant itself in the memo- 
ries of all men. 

After having been the instrument of civilization, there 
was wanting to the Latin tongue only one species of glory, 
and that it acquired by becoming, in due time, the lan- 
guage of science. Men of creative genius adopted it as 
the medium for communicating to the world their great 
thoughts. Gopernicus, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, and a 
hundred others of high note, although not equally re- 
nowned, wrote in Latin. An innumerable multitude of 
historians, theologians, writers on law, medicine, antiqui- 
ties, &c. inundated Europe with Latin works of every de- 
scription. Charming poets, and literary men of the first 
order, restored to the language of Eome its ancient forms, 
and carried it to a degree of perfection which ceases not 



CHAP. XX.] THE LATIN LANGUAGE. 



113 



to astonish all who compare modern writers to their early 
models. All other languages, although still cultivated and 
understood, are, nevertheless, silent in the monuments of 
antiquity, and will most probably for ever remain so. 

Alone, of all ancient tongues, that of Rome is truly 
risen again ; and, like to him whom it has not ceased to 
celebrate for two thousand years, "once risen, it will die no 
more." (Rom. vi. 9.) 

Opposed to these brilliant privileges, of what conse- 
quence is the vulgar and oft-repeated objection, that it is a 
language unknown to the 'people f Protestants never have 
done urging this objection, without reflecting that that por- 
tion of Divine worship which is common to us with them, 
is on both sides alike performed in the vulgar tongue. 
Among them, the principal thing — the soul of worship, as 
it were — is preaching ; which, by its nature, and in all 
forms of worship, is done only in the vernacular tongue. 
With us, sacrifice is the real worship : everything else is 
accessory ; and what matters it to the people whether those 
sacramental words, which are only pronounced in a low 
tone of voice, be recited in French, in German, or in 
Hebrew ? 

They adduce, moreover, the same sophism in regard to 
the Liturgy as in regard to the sacred writings. They 
cease not talking of an " unknown tongue/' as if there 
were question of the Chinese or Sanscrit languages. Who- 
ever does not understand the Scriptures and the Divine 
office, has it quite in his power to learn Latin. Speaking 
of ladies, even, Fenelon remarked that " he would like as 
well they should be taught Latin, in order to understand 
the Divine office, as that they should learn Italian for the 
sake of reading amatory poems/' 

But prejudice never listens to reason ; and for three cen- 
turies back it accuses us of concealing the Holy Scriptures 
and public prayers, whilst we present them in a language 
known to every man who can claim to be, I do not say 
learned, but well-informed, and which the ignorant person, 
who is tired of his ignorance, can learn in a few months. 

i 



114 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK I. 



Besides, everything has been provided for by translations 
of all the prayers of the Church. Some of these transla- 
tions represent the very words, others the sense. They are 
infinite in number, and they are adapted to all ages, all 
understandings, and all characters. Certain striking words 
in the original tongue, and familiar to every ear, certain 
ceremonies, certain movements, certain noises even, advise 
the least lettered bystander of what is being done and said. 
He can always be in perfect harmony with the priest ; if 
he be distracted, he has himself to blame. 

As to that portion of the people who are altogether un- 
lettered, if they understand not the words, so much the 
better ; reverence gains, and understanding suffers no loss. 
He who understands not at all, understands better than 
he who understands imperfectly. How, besides, should 
he complain of a religion which does everything for him ? 
Ignorance, poverty, humility it instructs, it consoles, it 
loves above all besides. And to science, why should it not 
say, in Latin, the only thing it has to say to it : that for 
pride there is no salvation f 

To conclude : every language that is subject to change, 
is but little suited to an unchangeable religion. The move- 
ment to which all things are liable is constantly making 
war on living languages ; and, without mentioning those 
great changes which wholly alter their nature, there are 
others which, without appearing to be so, are of great im- 
portance. The corruption of the world takes possession 
every day of certain words, and spoils them for its diver- 
sion. If the Church spoke our language, it might be in 
the power of any libertine wit to render the most sacred 
word of the Liturgy ridiculous or indecent. In every ima- 
ginable view of the matter, the language of religion ought 
to be kept beyond the domain of man. 



115 



BOOK II. 

THE POPE IN HIS RELATION WITH TEMPORAL 
SOVEREIGNTIES. 



CHAPTER I. 

A FEW WORDS ON SOVEREIGNTY. 

Man, as a being at once moral and corrupt, of right 
understanding and perverse will, must necessarily be go- 
verned ; otherwise he would be social and anti-social at 
the same time, and society would be alike necessary and 
impossible. 

We learn from the tribunals the absolute necessity of 
sovereignty. Man must be governed, precisely as he must 
be judged, and for the same reason, — that wherever there 
is no sentence there is combat. 

On this point, as on many others, man could not imagine 
anything better than what exists, — a power which guides 
mankind by general rules, designed, not for such a case or 
for such a man, but for all cases, for all times, and for all 
men. 

Sovereignty, and consequently society, become possible 
from the fact that man is at least always just in his in- 
tentions as often as he is not personally interested. For 
the cases in which sovereignty is exposed to do wrong 
voluntarily, are always, by the nature of things, much more 
rare than any other cases ; just as (to follow the same 
analogy) the cases in which judges are tempted to prevari- 
cate, are necessarily rare in proportion. If it were other- 
wise, the administration of justice as well as sovereignty 
would be impossible. 

12 



116 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



The most dissolute prince hinders not public crimes from 
being prosecuted in his tribunals, provided there be not 
question of matters which concern him personally. But as 
he is the only one above justice, even though he should 
unfortunately in his own conduct give the most dangerous 
examples, the general laws could always be put in force. 

Man, then, being necessarily in society, and necessarily 
governed, his will goes for nothing in the establishing of 
government ; for when the choice lies not with the people, 
and when sovereignty directly originates in the wants of 
human nature, sovereigns exist not by favour of the people; 
sovereignty being no more the result of their will than 
society itself. 

It has often been asked, whether the king were made for 
the people, or the people for the king ? This question, it 
appears to me, supposes very little reflection. The two 
propositions are false if taken separately, true when taken 
together. The people are made for the sovereign and the 
sovereign for the people, and, both the one and the other, 
in order that there may be a sovereignty. 

The mainspring of a watch is not made for the balance, 
nor the latter for the former, but each of them for the 
other, and both the one and the other to tell the hour. 

No sovereign without nation, as there is no nation without 
sovereign. The nation owes more to the sovereign than 
the sovereign to the nation ; for the latter is indebted to 
the former for its social existence, and all the benefits 
accruing therefrom ; whilst the prince owes nothing to 
sovereignty but empty splendour, which has nothing in 
common with happiness, and even almost always excludes it. 



CHAPTER II. 

INCONVENIENCES OF SOVEREIGNTY. 

Although sovereignty has no greater or more general 
interest than that of being just, and although the cases in 



CHAP. II.] 



SOVEREIGNTY. 



117 



which it is tempted to deviate from justice, be incompara- 
bly less numerous than those of the opposite description, 
yet are they, unfortunately, in too great number ; and the 
peculiar character of certain sovereigns may augment those 
inconveniences to such a degree, that there is scarcely any 
other means of rendering them at all supportable, than that 
of comparing them with those which would arise if the 
sovereign existed not. 

It was then impossible that men should not from time to 
time have made exertions to protect themselves from the 
excesses of this enormous prerogative ; but on the point in 
question the world is divided between two systems decidedly 
different. 

The daring race ofJaphet has not ceased, if the expres- 
sion may be permitted, to gravitate towards what is called 
liberty ; that is to say, towards that state in which the 
governing power governs as little, and the governed are as 
little governed as possible. Always on his guard against 
his masters, the European has sometimes expelled them and 
sometimes opposed to them the barriers of laws. He has 
tried everything, he has exhausted all imaginable forms of 
government, in order to dispense with rulers or to restrain 
their power. 

The immense posterity of Sem and Cham have adopted 
another course. From primitive times till those in which we 
live, it has always said to one man, "Do whatever you please, 
and when we are tired of you we shall put you to death/' 

Besides, it has never been either able or willing to under- 
stand what is meant by a republic ; it knows nothing about 
the balance of power, about all those privileges or all those 
fundamental laws in which we glory so much. Among 
them the wealthiest of men, he who is most the master of 
his actions, the possessor of an immense moveable fortune, 
absolutely free to carry it wherever he pleases, sure, more- 
over, of complete protection on the soil of Europe, and 
already beholding the approach of the cord or the poniard, 
prefers them, nevertheless, to the misfortune of dying of 
tedium amongst us. 



118 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



Nobody, doubtless, will take it in his head to prescribe 
for Europe the public law, brief and clear as it is, of Asia 
and Africa ; but since, among Europeans, power is always 
clamorous in discussion, attacked or beside itself — since 
there is nothing so intolerable to our pride as despotic 
government, the greatest problem Europe has to solve is, 
" How is sovereign power to be restrained without being 
destroyed V 

The ready reply is, " Have fundamental laws — a consti- 
tution." But who will establish those fundamental laws — 
who will put them in execution ? The body or the indivi- 
dual who should have this power would be sovereign, since 
he would be stronger than the sovereign ; so that, by the 
very act of establishing the constitution, he would dethrone 
the sovereign. If the constitutional law be a concession by 
the sovereign, the question is reopened. Who will prevent 
any of his successors from violating it ? The right of re- 
sistance must be attributed to a body or an individual ; 
otherwise it can only be exercised by rebellion — that terrible 
remedy, worse than every evil. 

Besides, we do not find that the numerous attempts made 
to restrain sovereign power have ever succeeded in a way 
calculated to inspire the wish to imitate them. England 
alone, favoured by the surrounding ocean, and by a national 
character which lends itself to such experiments, has been 
able to effect something in this way ; but its constitution 
has not yet been proved by time ; and already, even, this 
famous edifice, which displays on its pediment mdclxxxviii, 
appears to shake on its yet humid foundations.* The civil 
and criminal law of England is not superior to that of other 
nations. The right of self-taxation, purchased by seas of 

a With all gratitude to the illustrious Sardinian for his friendly 
warning, it must be observed that the British constitution dates 
from a somewhat remoter period than the accession of William 
the Dutchman. The modification of it which then took place 
has been itself modified, and is still undergoing modification ; 
which shows the elasticity, but by no means proves the insta- 
bility of the constitution. The national character may partly 
account for this, it is true ; but why not allow to every people the 
government suited to its national character? 



CHAP. II.] 



SOVEREIGNTY. 



119 



blood, has only procured for it the privilege of being the 
most highly taxed nation in the world. A certain soldier- 
like spirit, which is the gangrene of liberty, visibly threatens 
the British constitution ; other symptoms I gladly pass over 
in silence. What will happen I know not ; but, although 
everything should fall out as happily as I desire, an isolated 
example in history would prove little in favour of constitu- 
tional monarchies, and the more so, as universal experience 
is opposed to this solitary instance. 

A great and powerful nation, not long ago, made the 
greatest exertion that ever was made in the world to gain 
liberty ; but how did it succeed ? It loaded itself with 
ridicule and shame, only to place at last on the throne a 
small b instead of a large B, and to introduce among the 
people servitude instead of obedience. It fell afterwards 
into the deepest humiliation, and having escaped political 
annihilation only by a miracle it had no right to expect, a 
it amuses itself under the yoke of strangers in reading its 
charter, which is creditable only to its king, and as to 
which time has not yet been able to give its explanation. 

The Catholic dogma, as all the world knows, proscribes, 
without distinction, every kind of rebellion ; and in defence 
of this dogma our doctors adduce sufficiently good argu- 
ments, even on philosophical and political grounds. 

Protestantism, on the contrary, starting from the doc- 
trine which recognizes the sovereignty of the people, and 
which it has transferred from religion to politics, sees only 
in the system of non-resistance the worst degradation of 
man. Doctor Beattie may be quoted as a representative of 
all his party. He calls the Catholic teaching of non-re- 
sistance, a detestable doctrine. He advances that man, 
when there is question of resisting sovereignty, ought to 
take his resolution according to those instinctive sentiments 
of morality whereof men are conscious, erroneously ascribing 
them to blood and spirits, or to education and habit. b He 
reproaches his celebrated fellow-countryman, Dr. Berkeley, 

a The reader must be reminded that this was written in 1817. 
b Beattie on Truth, part ii. chap xii. p. 408. London ed. 8vo. 
Pride was never more distinctly expressed. 



120 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK H. 



with having denied this interior power, and with having 
believed that man, as a rational being, ought to be guided 
by the dictates of sober and impartial reason.^ 

I much admire those fine maxims, but they are wanting 
in this, that they afford no light to the mind, to enable it 
to decide on difficult occasions, where theories are absolutely 
useless. When man has come to the conclusion (and for 
the sake of argument I grant he may) that he is entitled 
to resist sovereign power, and confine it within due bounds, 
nothing has yet been done ; for it remains to be discovered, 
when, in what circumstances, this right may be exercised, 
and who are the men entitled to exercise it. 

The most zealous sticklers for the right of resistance 
are agreed (and who could doubt it ?) that it can only be 
justified by tyranny. But what is tyranny ? Can a single 
act, if atrocious, be so designated ? If there must be more 
than one, how many are required, and of what description 
must they be? What power in the state is entitled to 
decide that a case for resistance has occurred ? If such a 
tribunal pre-exists, it is already a portion of the sovereignty, 
and by acting on the other portion it destroys it. If it does 
not pre-exist, by what tribunal shall this tribunal be esta- 
blished. Can men, besides, exercise a right, although just 
and incontestable, without weighing the disadvantages 
which may result from its exercise ? History with one 
voice informs us that revolutions commenced by the wisest 
of men are always ended by fools ; that the authors of 
them are always their victims, whilst the efforts of the 
people to create or increase liberty, always terminate by 
enslaving them. Unfathomable gulfs present themselves 
on every side. 

But it will be said, would you then unmuzzle the tiger, 
and reduce men to passive obedience ? Well, behold what 
the king will do ! " He will take your children to drive 
his chariots, he will make them his grooms, and will cause 

a Beattie, ibid. Blasphemous assertion, to be sure ! Here is 
clearly perceptible that warmth of blood which pride calls moral 
instinct, &c. 



CHAP. III.] 



SOVEREIGNTY. 



121 



them to march before his car. He will make of them officers 
and soldiers ; some he will take to cultivate his fields and 
gather in his grain, and others to fabricate armour. He 
will make your daughters provide him perfumes, cook for 
him, and bake bread ; he will appropriate to himself and 
his family whatever is best in your fields, your vineyardSj 
and your orchards ; he will cause the tithes of your corn 
and your vines to be paid to him, in order to remunerate 
his eunuchs and his domestics. He will take your serving- 
men and your serving women, your strongest young men 
and your beasts of burthen, to make them toil together for 
his profit ; he will appropriate also the tithes of your flocks, 
and you shall be his slaves." a 

I never pretended that absolute power, in whatever form 
it may exist, is not attended by great inconveniences ; on 
the contrary, I distinctly acknowledge the fact, and I 
dream not of extenuating its evils ; I only say that we are 
placed between two abysses. 



CHAPTER III. 

IDEAS OF ANTIQUITY ON THE GREAT PROBLEM. 

It is not in the power of man to create a law which 
shall not require any exception whatsoever. This impossi- 
bility results alike from the weakness of men, who cannot 
foresee everything, and from the very nature of things, 
some of which vary to such a degree, as to go, quite of 
their own impulse, beyond the circle of the law ; whilst 
others, arranged by imperceptible gradations under common 
descriptions, cannot be expressed by a general name which 
is not false in some of its bearings. 

Hence arises in all legislation the necessity of a dispens- 
ing power ; for wherever there is not dispensation, violation 
must ensue. 

But every violation of the law is dangerous or fatal to 



a 1 Kings, viii. 11—17. 



122 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



it ; whilst, on the other hand, every dispensation fortifies 
it. For none can ask to be dispensed from the law without 
doing it homage, and without acknowledging that no man, 
of himself, has power against it. 

The law which prescribes obedience to sovereigns is, like 
every other, a general law ; it is good, just, and necessary 
in general ; but, if Nero be on the throne, it may appear 
faulty. 

Why, then, should there not be in such cases dispensa- 
tion from the general law, founded on circumstances alto- 
gether unforeseen? 

Is it not better to act with full knowledge of the case, 
and in the name of authority, than to rush upon the tyrant 
with a blind impetuosity, which carries with it all the symp- 
toms of crime ? 

But to whom apply for this dispensation ? Sovereignty 
being for us essentially sacred, an emanation of Divine 
power, which nations in every age have always placed under 
the guardianship of religion, but which Christianity, above 
all, has taken under its particular protection, in enjoining 
us to behold in the sovereign a representative and an image 
of God himself ; — it was not absurd to think that, in order 
to be released from the oath of allegiance, there was no 
other competent authority than that of the high spiritual 
power which stands alone in the world, and whose sublime 
prerogatives constitute a portion of Divine revelation. 

As the oath of allegiance without restriction exposed men 
to all the horrors of tyranny, and as resistance without rule 
led the way to all the evils of anarchy, the dispensation 
from this oath pronounced by the spiritual sovereignty very 
naturally presented itself to the human mind as the only 
means of restraining temporal authority without obliterat- 
ing its character. 

It would, besides, be a mistake to suppose that dispensa- 
tion from the oath would be, in this hypothesis, in contra- 
diction with the divine origin of sovereignty. Such con- 
tradiction would all the less exist, that the dispensing 
power being supposed eminently divine, nothing would, in 



CHAP. III.] 



SOVEREIGNTY. 



123 



certain respects and under certain circumstances, prevent 
another power from being subordinate to it. 

The forms of sovereignty, moreover, are not everywhere 
the same ; they are fixed by fundamental laws, the real 
bases of which are never written. Pascal has admirably 
remarked, " that he would have equal horror in destroying 
liberty where God has planted it, as in introducing it 
where it exists not." For there is not question here of 
monarchy, but of sovereignty — quite a different thing. 

This observation is essential to extricate us from the 
sophism which so naturally occurs. Here or there sove- 
reignty is limited, therefore it proceeds from the people. 

In the first place, if we would express ourselves with 
precision, there is no limited sovereignty — all are absolute 
and infallible, since nowhere is it permitted to say that 
they have erred. When I say that no sovereignty is limited, 
I speak of it as regards its legitimate exercise, and this 
must be carefully attended to. For it may be said with 
equal truth, under two different points of view, that every 
sovereignty is limited, and that no sovereignty is limited — 
limited, inasmuch as no sovereignty can do everything ; not 
so, inasmuch as, in its legitimate circle, traced by the fun- 
damental laws of each country, it is always and everywhere 
absolute, insomuch that no person is entitled to say to it 
that it is unjust or mistaken. Its legitimacy consists not, 
therefore, in conducting itself in such or such a way within 
its sphere, but in not stepping beyond that sphere. 

Sufficient attention is not always bestowed on this dis- 
tinction. It will be said, for instance, in England the so- 
vereignty is limited; there is no greater mistake. It is 
royalty that is limited in that celebrated state. Now, 
royalty is not the whole sovereignty, at least in theory. 
But, when the three powers which, in England, constitute 
sovereignty, are agreed, what can they do ? We must 
reply with Blackstone — Everything. And what can be 
legally done against them ? Nothing. 

Thus the question of Divine origin can be discussed at 
London as well as at Madrid or elsewhere ; and everywhere 



124 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



it offers the same problem, although the forms of sove- 
reignty vary according to country. In the next place, to 
maintain forms according to the fundamental laws alters 
not either the essence or the rights of sovereignty. Would 
those judges of the supreme court, who because of intole- 
rable cruelties should deprive a father of the right to bring 
up his children, be considered as striking down parental 
authority, and declaring that it is not divine ? In contain- 
ing a power within its proper bounds, the tribunal contests 
not either its legitimacy, its character, or its legal extent ; 
on the contrary, it solemnly acknowledges them. 

The Sovereign Pontiff, likewise, in absolving subjects 
from their oath of fidelity, would do nothing contrary to 
Divine right. He would only profess that sovereignty is a 
divine and sacred authority, which cannot be controlled by 
any other than an authority which is also divine, but of a 
superior order, and specially invested with this power in 
certain extraordinary cases. 

It would be a paralogism to reason thus : — God is the 
author of sovereignty, therefore it cannot be controlled. 
This I admit, provided God has created and maintains it 
beyond control, but if otherwise, I deny it. God is master, 
no doubt, to create a sovereignty, restricted in its very 
principle, or afterwards, by a power he would have esta- 
blished at the time marked by his decrees, and under this 
form it would be divine. 

France, before the revolution, had fundamental laws, 
which, as they were fundamental, the king could not touch. 
Nevertheless, all French theology justly rejected the system 
of the sovereignty of the people as an antichristian dogma ; 
such or such restriction, therefore, devised by men, has 
nothing in common with divine origin ; for it would be 
strange indeed if this sublime prerogative should belong 
only to despotism. 

And by a far more obvious and still more decisive con- 
sequence, a divine power, solemnly and directly established 
by the Divinity, although it could modify, would not alter 
the essence of any divine work. 



CHAP. IV.] 



SOVEREIGNTY. 



125 



These ideas fluctuated in the minds of our forefathers, 
but they were not in a position to account to themselves 
for the theory, and to reduce it to a systematic form. They 
only entertained, vaguely, the notion that temporal sove- 
reignty could be controlled by that high spiritual power 
which possessed the right, in certain cases, to recall the oath 
of the subject. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SAME SUBJECT. 

I am not at all obliged to reply to the objections which 
might be started against the ideas I have just expressed, 
for I would by no means be understood to preach the in- 
direct right of the Popes. I say merely that such ideas 
are nowise absurd. My argument is ad hominem, or to 
speak more correctly ad homines. I take the liberty to say 
to the age in which I live, that there is manifest contra- 
diction between its enthusiasm for constitutions, and. its 
loud railing against the Popes. I prove to it, and nothing 
is more easy, that on this important point it knows less, 
or at least does not know more, than the middle ages. 

But, ceasing to lose ourselves in a maze of ideas, let us, 
in all sincerity, take our side on the great question of 
passive obedience, or non-resistance. Would men have it 
laid down as a principle, " that for no imaginable 51 reason 
is it permitted to resist authority ; that we must thank 
God for good principles, and patiently suffer bad ones till 
time, the great repairer of evils, do justice on them ; that 
there is always more danger in resisting, than in bearing 

a When I say for no imaginable reason, I must be clearly un- 
derstood to exclude the case of a sovereign commanding crime. 
I would not be far from believing that there are circumstances 
more numerous, perhaps, than is supposed, in which the word 
resistance is not synonymous with that of revolt. But I cannot, 
and I should not even like to dwell upon details ; the more so, 
as general principles suffice for the object of this work. 



126 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



them, &c." I accept the principle, and am ready to sub- 
scribe to it for all time to come. 

But if it come to be absolutely necessary to set legal 
limits to sovereign power, I would most cordially express 
my opinion, that the interests of humanity should be con- 
fided to the Sovereign Pontiff. 

The defenders of the right of resistance have too often 
exempted themselves from honestly stating the question. 
And, in fact, the point is by no means to discover whether, 
but when and how it is permitted to resist. The problem 
is wholly practical, and, so considered, it makes us tremble. 
But if the right to resist were changed into the right to 
hinder, and that instead of residing in the subject, it be- 
longed to a power of another order, there would no longer 
be the same inconvenience, because this hypothesis admits 
resistance without revolution, and without any violation of 
sovereignty. 1 

This right of opposition, moreover, being vested in one 
individual, well known and unique, it could be made sub- 
ject to rules, and exercised with all conceivable prudence, 
and every imaginable variety of manner; whilst, on the 
other hand, in the case of internal resistance, it could only 
be exercised by the subjects, by the multitude, — by the 
people in a word, — and, consequently, by no other means 
than insurrection. 

This is not all : the veto of the Pope might be put in 
force against all sovereigns, and might be adapted to all 
constitutions and to all varieties of national character. The 
word limited monarchy is soon pronounced. In theory, 
nothing is more easy ; but when we come to practice and 
experience, we find only an example, doubtful from its 
duration, and which the judgment of Tacitus has already 
proscribed. 5 There are many circumstances, besides, which 

* The absolute and never-to-be-recalled deposition of a tem- 
poral prince — an infinitely rare case, in the present supposition 
— would be no more a revolution than the death of that same 
sovereign. 

b Delecta ex his et constituta reipublicae forma laudari faci- 



CHAP. IV. J 



SOVEREIGNTY. 



127 



permit and even oblige us to consider that form of govern- 
ment a phenomenon altogether local, and perhaps transient. 

The pontifical power, on the contrary, is, from its 
essential constitution, the least subject to the caprices of 
politics. He who wields it is, moreover, always aged, un- 
married, and a priest ; all which circumstances exclude 
ninety-nine hundredths of all the errors and passions which 
disturb states. And, lastly, as he is at a distance, as his 
power is of a different nature from that of all temporal 
sovereigns ; and, as he never asks anything for himself, the 
belief might be legitimately enough entertained, that if all 
the inconveniences are not removed, which is impossible, 
there would remain at least as few as can be hoped for, due 
allowance being made for the weakness of human nature. 
This, in the estimation of every sensible man, is the 
highest degree of perfection. 

It appears, therefore, that in order to contain sovereignties 
within their legitimate bounds, or, in other words, to pre- 
vent them from violating the fundamental laws of the state, 
among which religion holds the first place, the intervention, 
more or less powerful, more or less active, of the spiritual 
supremacy, would be a means at least as plausible as any 
other. 

"We might go still further, and maintain, with equal 
certainty, that this means would also be the most agreeable, 
or the least unpleasant, to sovereigns. If the prince be 
free to refuse or to accept restraint, he certainly will not 
accept it ; for, neither power nor liberty has ever said, 
enough. But, supposing that sovereignty had no other 
alternative than submit to restraint, and that there were 
question only of choosing, I should not be astonished if it 
preferred the Pope to a co-legislative senate, a national 
assembly, &c. ; for the sovereign pontiffs require but little 
of princes. Enormities alone would demand their animad- 
version^ 

lius quam evenire, vel si evenerit, hand diuturna esse potest. — 
Tacit. Ann. iii. 33. 
a If the states-general of France had addressed to Louis XIV. 



128 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



CHAPTER, V. 

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POWER EXERCISED 
BY THE POPES. 

The Popes have struggled sometimes with sovereigns, 
never with sovereignty. The very act by which they 
loosed subjects from their oath of allegiance, declared 
sovereignty inviolable. The Popes instructed the people 
that no human power could touch the sovereign, whose 
authority was only suspended by a power wholly divine ; 
so that their anathemas, far from ever derogating from 
the strictness of Catholic maxims on the inviolability of 
sovereigns, had, on the contrary, no other tendency than to 
give them new sanction in the eyes of the people. 

If any individuals considered this distinction between 
sovereign and sovereignty as too subtle, I would readily 
sacrifice to them these expressions, with which can I easily 
dispense. I shall simply say, that the blows struck by 
the Holy See against a small number of sovereigns, almost 
all odious, and sometimes, even, intolerable by their crimes, 
might check or alarm them, without altering in the minds 
of the people the high and sublime idea of their rulers it 
was their duty to entertain. The Popes were universally 
acknowledged as delegates of the Divinity, from whom 
sovereignty emanates. The greatest princes sought in the 
sacred rites of coronation the sanction of their right, and, 
so to speak, its completion. The first of those sovereigns, 
according to the ideas that formerly prevailed, — the Emperor 
of Germany, — was accustomed to be crowned by the hands 
of the Pope himself. He was considered to hold of the Holy 

a petition like to that which the Commons of England pre- 
sented to Edward III. towards the end of the fourteenth cen- 
tury (vid. Hume, Edw. III. 1377, chap. xvi. 4to. p. 332), I am 
persuaded that his pride would have been much more shocked 
by it, than by a Bull with the same end in view, given under the 
seal of the fisherman. 



CHAP. V.] POWER EXERCISED BY THE POPES. 129 

Father his august character, and to be truly emperor only 
by his coronation. 

Farther on will be found all the details of this public 
law, than which none more general, none more incontestably 
recognized, ever existed. The people who beheld a king 
excommunicated reflected thus : — That power must be very 
high, wry sublime, far above all human judgment, since it 
can only be controlled by the vicar of Jesus Christ. 

In considering this subject, we are liable to a great 
illusion. Deceived by the clamours of the philosophers, 
we are accustomed to believe that the Popes spent their 
time in deposing kings ; and, because these facts touch 
one another in the duodecimo pamphlets we are in the 
habit of reading, we imagine that they are equally near to 
one another in point of time. But how many in reality, 
how many hereditary sovereigns, have been deposed by 
Popes ? There have only been threats, negotiations, and 
transactions as to elective princes ; they were of man's 
creation, and could surely be set aside, as they were raised 
to power, by a human hand ; and still the whole number 
amounts to two or three frenzied princes, who, for the 
happiness of mankind, met with a check (weak indeed, and 
very inadequate) in the spiritual power of the Popes. Be- 
sides, everything followed its wonted course in the political 
world. Each king remained tranquil in his own kingdom, 
undisturbed by the Church ; the Popes had no idea of 
meddling with their administration ; and, until it occurred 
to them to plunder the priesthood, to send away their 
wives, or to have two at the same time, they had nothing 
to fear in that quarter. 

To this sound theory experience adds the weight of its 
evidence. What has been the result of those powerful 
movements about which so much noise has been made? 
The divine origin of sovereignty — that dogma which tends so 
strongly to preserve states, was universally established in 
Europe. It constituted, in a manner, our public law, and 
prevailed in all our schools till the disastrous schism of the 
sixteenth century. 

K 



ISO 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



Experience, therefore, is perfectly in accordance with 
the conclusions of reason. The excommunications of the 
Popes by no means injured sovereignty in the minds of the 
people ; on the contrary, in repressing it on certain points, 
in rendering it less ferocious and less crushing, in alarming 
it for its own good, of which it was ignorant, they caused 
it to be more venerated ; they made the ancient mark of 
brute power to disappear from its brow, and placed there 
in its stead the character of regeneration ; they rendered 
it holy, and thus it became inviolable ; new and striking 
proof, among a thousand, that the pontifical power has 
always been eminently conservative. Every man in the 
world, I believe, may satisfy himself as to this great fact ; 
but it is particularly the duty of every child of the Church 
to know and acknowledge that the divine spirit which in- 
spires her, et rnagno se corpore miscet, cannot be productive 
of any evil result, notwithstanding the mixture of that 
which is human making itself be felt too much and too 
frequently in the midst of political tempests. 

To those who give their attention to particular facts, to 
accidental faults, to the errors of such or such a man, who 
dwell on certain phrases, who dissect each line of history 
for the purpose of considering it separately, only one thing 
can be said : — " From the point to which we must rise, in 
order to embrace the whole together, nothing of what you 
see can be discerned ; wherefore there is no means of 
answering you, unless you be pleased to take this same for 
an answer." 

It may be observed that modern philosophers have fol- 
lowed, in regard to sovereigns, a route diametrically op- 
posed to that which the Popes had traced out. The latter 
consecrated the character in levelling their blows at the 
person of the prince ; the former, on the contrary, often 
flattered, servilely enough, too, the person who gives em- 
ployments and pensions ; and they destroyed, as much as 
was in their power, the character of sovereignty, by ren- 
dering it odious or ridiculous, by making it originate with 
the people, by seeking always to restrain it by the people. 



CHAP. V.] POWER EXERCISED BY THE POPES. 131 

There is so much analogy, so much fraternity, so much 
dependence between the pontifical power and that of kings, 
that the former was never shaken without the latter being 
injured, and that the innovators of our age have never 
ceased to point out to kings the Christian priesthood as 
the greatest enemy of royal authority. Incredible contra- 
diction ! unheard-of phenomenon ! which would be unique, 
if there were not something still more extraordinary ; and 
this is, that they have succeeded in making themselves 
be believed both by people and by kings. 

The chief of the reformers gave, in a few lines, his 
profession of faith as regards sovereigns : " Princes/'' says 
he, " are commonly the greatest fools and the most arrant 
knaves on the face of the earth ; we can expect nothing 
good of them ; they are in this world nothing else than 
the butchers of God, of whom he makes use to chastise 
us." a 

The freezing influence of scepticism has calmed the fever 
of the sixteenth century, and language has been polished, 
together with the manners of men ; but the principles 
remain always the same. The sect which abhors the 
Sovereign Pontiff will now enunciate its dogmas. 

"Que l'univers se taise et l'ecoute parler ! " 
" Let the world be silent and listen ! " 

" In whatsoever manner the prince is invested with 
authority, he holds it solely from the people, and the people 
never depend on any mortal man except in virtue of their 
own consent/'' b 

a Luther, in his works in folio, torn. ii. p. 182, quoted in the 
very remarkable and well-known German hook, entitled " Der 
Triumph der Philosophie in Achtzehnten Jahrhunderte," 8vo. 
torn. i. p. 52. Luther had made for himself a sort of proverb 
on this subject : " Principem esse, et non esse latronem, vix 
possibile est ; " which means, " To be a prince, and not a rob- 
ber at the same time, appears to be scarcely possible."— Ibid. 

b Noodt, on the Power of Sovereigns. — Collection of discourses 
on divers important matters, translated or composed by Jean 
Barbeyrac, torn. i. p. 41. 

K 2 



132 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



" On the people depend the well-being, the security, 
and the permanency of every legal government. In the 
people must necessarily reside the essence of all power ; 
and all those whose knowledge or capacity has induced 
the people to give them — sometimes wisely, and sometimes 
imprudently — their confidence, are responsible to them for 
the use they have made of the power that has been confided 
to them for a time/'' a 

At the present hour, it behoves princes to reflect 
seriously. They have been made to dread that power, 
which sometimes embarrassed their ancestors a thousand 
years ago, but which had rendered divine the character of 
sovereign. They have allowed themselves to be dragged 
upon the earth, and there no longer belongs to their cha- 
racter anything more than what is of man. b 



CHAPTER VI. 

TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES — WARS WHICH THEY HAVE 
SUSTAINED AS TEMPORAL PRINCES. 

It is extremely remarkable, but by no means sufficiently 
remarked, that the Popes have never made use of the 
immense power they are possessed of, to aggrandize their 
own state. What was more natural, for instance, or more 
tempting to human nature, than to reserve for themselves 
a portion of the provinces conquered by the Saracens, and 
which they gave to the first who got possession of them, as 
an encouragement to repel the Crescent, which was con- 
tinuing to advance ? Nevertheless, they never did so, not 
even in regard to lands conterminous with their own, like 

a Opinion of Sir William Jones. — Memoirs of the Life of Sir 
William Jones, by Lord Teignmouth. London, 1806, 4to. p. 200. 

b These remarks are as strikingly applicable to the present 
period (1849-50), as to the year (1817) in which they were 
written. 



CHAP. VI.] TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES. 133 

the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, over which they had 
incontestable rights, at least according to the ideas of the 
time ; but with regard to which, notwithstanding, they 
were satisfied with a vain superiority. This privilege, too, 
was soon reduced to a light and merely nominal tribute, 
which the bad taste of the age still disputes with them. 

The Popes may possibly have made too much, in bygone 
times, of that universal superiority which a no less universal 
opinion freely accorded them. They may have exacted 
homage and imposed taxes too arbitrarily, perhaps ; it is of 
no importance to examine here all these different points. 
But it will always remain true, that they never sought or 
seized an occasion of extending their states at the expense 
of justice, whilst no other temporal sovereignty escaped 
this curse. At the present day, even, with all our philo- 
sophy, all our civilization, and all our fine books, there is 
not, perhaps, an European power in a position to justify all 
its possessions in the face of God and reason. 

I read, in the " Letters on History/' that the Popes have 
sometimes availed themselves of their temporal power to 
increase their properties. 21 

But the term sometimes is vague ; that of temporal 
power is so likewise, and that of property still more so. I 
wait, therefore, till it be explained to me when and how the 
Popes have employed their spiritual power, or the political 
means at their command, to extend their states at the 
expense of a legitimate proprietor. 

Until the despoiled proprietor appear, we shall continue 
to observe, and not without admiration, that among all the 
Popes who reigned, in the time of their greatest influence, 
there never was an usurper ; and that at those periods, 
even, when they made their superiority available over such 
or such a state, they always made use of it to give away 
that state, not to retain it. 

Even when considered only as sovereigns, the conduct 

a The Spirit of History, letter xl. Paris, Nyon, 1803, 8vo. 
torn. ii. p. 899. 



134 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



of the Popes is still eminently remarkable. Julius II., for 
instance, carried on a deadly war against the Venetians ; 
but it was with a view to regain the towns usurped by the 
Venetian republic. 

This point is one of those to which I shall invite with 
confidence that general view of history which ought to 
determine the judgment of sensible men. The Popes have 
reigned as temporal sovereigns since the ninth century at 
least ; now, counting from that time, we shall not find in 
any sovereign dynasty more respect for the territory of other 
princes, and less ambition to extend its own. 

As temporal princes, the Popes equal or surpass in power 
many of the crowned heads of Europe. Examine the his- 
tory of the various countries ; there will generally be seen 
a policy quite different from that of the Popes. Why 
should not the latter have acted politically, as did the 
former ? Nevertheless, we see not on their part that 
tendency to aggrandizement which constitutes the distin- 
guishing and general character of every sovereignty. 

Julius II., to whom reference has just been made, is the 
only Pope, if my memory deceives me not, who acquired a 
territory by the ordinary rules of public law, in virtue of a 
treaty which put an end to a war. In this way, he caused 
the duchy of Parma to be ceded to him ; but this acquisi- 
tion, although not culpable, did violence, nevertheless, to 
the pontifical character ; it soon afterwards escaped from 
the authority of the Holy See. To this sovereignty alone 
belongs the honour of possessing at the present day no 
more than it possessed ten centuries ago. In connection 
with it we find neither treaties, nor combats, nor intrigues, 
nor usurpations. Tracing it to its origin, we come always 
to a donation. Pepin, Charlemagne, Louis, Lotharius, 
Henry, Otho, the Countess Matilda, formed this temporal 
state of the Popes, so precious to Christianity ; but the 
force of circumstances had commenced it, and this unseen 
operation is one of the most curious spectacles in history. 

There is not in Europe a sovereignty more justifiable, if 
it may be thus expressed, than that of the sovereign pon- 



CHAP. VI.] TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES. 135 

tiffs. It is like the divine law, justificata in semetipsd. 
But what can be more truly astonishing than to behold the 
Popes becoming sovereigns whilst they perceived it not 
themselves ; yea, even whilst, to speak more correctly, 
they resisted this elevation. An invisible law raised up 
the see of Rome ; and it may be said that the chief of the 
Universal Church was born a sovereign. From the scaffold 
of the martyrs, he ascended a throne which at first escaped 
observation, but which, like all great things, was impercep- 
tibly consolidated, and became known from its earliest ex- 
istence, through an indescribable atmosphere of greatness, 
which surrounded it without any assignable human cause. 
The Roman Pontiff had need of riches, and riches 
abounded ; he had need of eclat, and the most extra- 
ordinary splendour was seen to radiate from the throne of 
St. Peter, to such a degree, that already, in the third 
century, one of the greatest nobles of Rome observed 
playfully, as St. Jerome relates, " Promise to make me 
Bishop of Rome, and I shall at once become a Christian/'* 
He who should speak here of religious avidity, avarice, 
sacerdotal influence, would prove, indeed, that he is quite 
up to the level of the age, but that he is by no means equal 
to the subject. How conceive a sovereignty without trea- 
sures ? These two ideas are a manifest contradiction. The 
riches of the Roman Church, therefore, being the sign of 
its dignity, and the necessary instrument of its legitimate 
action, were, undoubtedly, the work of Providence, which 
marked them from the beginning with the seal of legiti- 
macy. They are seen, and it is not known whence they 
proceed. They are seen, and nobody complains. They are 
the accumulations of respect, of love, of piety, of faith. 
From these sources have arisen those vast patrimonies 
which have so much exercised the pens of the learned. 
St. Gregory, at the close of the fourth century, possessed 
twenty-three in Italy, in the islands of the Mediterranean, 

a Zaccaria, Anti-Febron. Vindic. torn. iv. dissert, ix. cap. iii. 
p. 33. 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



in Illyrium, in Dalmatia, in Germany, and in Gaul. a The 
jurisdiction of the Popes over these patrimonies is of a 
peculiar character, which is not easily apprehended in the 
obscurities of history, but which, nevertheless, is obviously 
above the mere right of property. The Popes are seen 
despatching envoys, issuing their commands, and causing 
themselves to be obeyed in the remotest regions, whilst it 
remains impossible to designate aright that supremacy, the 
name of which it had not yet pleased divine Providence to 
pronounce. 

In Eome, while it was yet pagan, the Roman Pontiff 
already embarrassed the Caesars. He was only their sub- 
ject ; they had all power against him ; he was possessed of 
none whatever in opposition to them. Nevertheless, they 
could not keep their ground beside him. There was read 
upon his forehead the character of a priesthood so exalted, 
that the emperor, among whose titles was that of sovereign 
pontiff, tolerated him in Rome with more impatience than 
he could suffer in his armies a Cwsar who contested the 
empire with him? An unseen hand was driving them 
from the eternal city, in order to give it to the chief of the 
eternal church. In the mind of Constantine, perhaps, 
there was mingled with the embarrassment to which I 
allude, a beginning of faith and of reverence, but I doubt 
not that this feeling influenced the determination he came 
to of transferring the seat of empire, much more than all 
the political motives that are attributed to him. Thus was 
accomplished the decree of the most High. (Iliad, i. 5.) 
The same walls could not encircle both the emperor and 
the Pontiff. Constantine ceded Rome to the Pope. The 

a See the Dissertation of the Abbe Cenni at the end of the hook 
of Cardinal Orsi, Delia origine del dominio e della sovranitd de* 
Rom. Pontefici sovra gli stati loro temporalmente soggetti. Roma, 
Pagliarini, 12mo. 1754, p. 306 to 309. The patrimony called the 
Cottien Alps was immense ; it contained Genoa and all the mari- 
time coast to the frontiers of France. See the authorities. — Ibid. 

a Bossuet, Lettre pastor, sur la com. pascale, No. IV. ex Cyp. 
epist. li. ad Ant. 



CHAP. VI.] TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES. 137 

conscience of mankind, which is infallible, understood it 
not otherwise, and hence arose the fable of donation, which 
is quite true. Antiquity, which must see and touch every- 
thing, soon made of the giving up (which it would not even 
have known how to designate) a donation in due form. It 
beheld it written on parchment, and deposited on the altar 
of St. Peter. 

The moderns discover forgery where simplicity itself was 
only relating what it thoughts There is nothing, there- 
fore, so real as the donation of Constantine. From the 
moment it took place, the emperors are obviously no longer 
at home in Rome. They are like strangers who from time 
to time go to lodge there by permission. But there is some- 
thing still more astonishing. Odoacer, with his Heruli in 
475, puts an end to the empire of the West. Not long 
after, the Heruli disappear before the Goths, and they in 
their turn give place to the Lombards, who take possession 
of the kingdom of Italy. What power during more than 
three centuries hindered all princes from establishing per- 
manently their throne at Rome ? What arm drove them 
back to Milan, to Pavia, to Ravenna, &c. ? In all this, 
the donation was constantly at work ; it sprung from too 
high a source to fail of being put in force. 

It is beyond dispute that the Popes ceased not labouring 
to preserve to the Greek emperors what remained to them 
of Italy against the Goths, the Heruli, and the Lombards. 
They neglected nothing that was calculated to give courage 
to the exarchs, and inspire the people with fidelity. They 
unceasingly conjured the Greek emperors to come to the 
aid of Italy ; but what could be obtained from those wretched 

a Did it not also behold an angel terrifying Attila before St. 
Leo? We moderns see nothing more than the ascendancy of 
the Pontiff ; but how paint an ascendancy ? But for the pic- 
turesque language of the men of the fifth century, where would 
have been that great masterpiece of Raphael? Besides, we are 
all agreed as to the miracle. An ascendancy which checks 
Attila is quite as supernatural as an angel ; and who knows 
whether they be really two different things ? 



138 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



princes ? Not only were they not able to do any thing for 
Italy ; they even betrayed it systematically, because having 
treaties with the barbarians, who threatened them on the 
side of Constantinople, they dared not disturb them in 
Italy. The state of those beautiful countries cannot be 
described, and still excites pity as we peruse their history. 
Laid waste by the barbarians, abandoned by its sovereigns, 
Italy no longer knew to whom it belonged, and its people 
were reduced to despair. In the midst of these great cala- 
mities, the Popes were the only refuge of the unfortunate, 
and without desiring it, by the force of circumstances alone, 
they were substituted for the emperor, and all eyes were 
fixed upon them. Italians, Heruli, Lombards, French, 
were all agreed in this respect. Already, in his time, 
St. Gregory observed : " Whoever attains the place I oc- 
cupy is overwhelmed with business to such a degree, as to 
doubt often whether he be prince or pontiff."* 

In many of his letters we find him acting the part of a 
sovereign administrator. He sends, for instance, a governor 
to Nepi, with injunctions to the people to obey him as the 
sovereign pontiff himself. We find, elsewhere, that he sends 
a tribune to Naples, charged with the guardianship of that 
great city. b A great many similar examples might be ad- 
duced. In short, he had become in Italy imperceptibly, 
and without knowing how, in regard to the Greek emperor, 
what the mayor of the palace was in France, in regard to 
the titular king. 

And, nevertheless, ideas of usurpation were so foreign to 
the Popes, that one year only before the arrival of Pepin 
in Italy, Stephen II. still entreated the most wretched of 
those Greek princes, Leo the Isaurian, to lend an ear to 

a Hoc in loco quisquis pastor dicitur, curis exterioribus gra- 
viter occupatur, ita ut saepe incertum sit utrum pastoris olfi- 
cium an terreni proceris agat. Lib. i. epist. 25, ad Joh. episc. 
C. P. et caet. orient. Patr. — Orsi, in the work quoted above, prsef. 
p. xix. 

b Lib. ii. epist. xi. al. viii. ad Nepes. — Ibid. p. xx. 



CHAP. VI.] TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES. 139 

the remonstrances he had not ceased to address to him, in 
order to induce him to come to the assistance of Italy. a 

There is a pretty general leaning to the belief that the 
Popes passed suddenly from a private state to the position 
of sovereigns, and that they owed all to the Carlovingians. 
Nothing, however, would be less founded than such an idea. 
Before those celebrated donations which did honour to 
France more than to the Holy See, although perhaps it is 
not sufficiently persuaded of this, the Popes were sovereigns 
in reality, and the title only was wanting to them. 

Gregory II. wrote to the Emperor Leo : " The West has 
its eyes directed towards our humility. ... It looks upon us 
as the arbiter and the moderator of public tranquillity .... 
You would find it, if you only ventured to make trial of it, 
ready to proceed even to the country where you are, there to 
avenge the wrongs of your subjects of the East." 

Zachary, who filled the pontifical chair from 741 to 752, 
sends an embassy to Rachis, king of the Lombards, con- 
cludes with him a peace of twenty years, by virtue of which 
all Italy was tranquil. 

Gregory II., in 726, sends ambassadors to Charles Martel, 
and treats with him, as one prince with another. 

When Pope Stephen came to France, Pepin went out to 
meet him with all his family, and paid him the honours due to 
a sovereign ; the sons of the king prostrated themselves before 
the pontiff. What bishop, what patriarch in Christendom 
would have dared pretend to such distinctions ? In a word, 
the Popes were sovereigns de facto, or to speak more exactly, 
sovereigns by compulsion, previously to all the liberalities of 
the Carlovingians ; and during the time of them even, they 
ceased not, until the days of Constantine Copronymus, to 
date their public documents from the years of the emperors, 
exhorting them incessantly at the same time to defend 

^ a Deprecans imperialem clementiam ut, juxta id quod et sae- 
pius scripserat, cum exercitu ad tuendas has Italise partes modis 
omnibus adveniret, &c. — Anast. the librarian, quoted in the dis- 
sert, of Cenni, ibid. p. 203. 



140 



THE POPE. 



[book n. 



Italy, to respect the opinion of the people, to leave con- 
sciences in peace ; but the emperors would listen to nothing, 
and the last hour was come. The people of Italy, driven 
to despair, took counsel only of themselves. Abandoned 
by their masters, ravaged by the barbarians, they chose for 
themselves chiefs and enacted laws. The Popes, having 
become dukes of Rome both in fact and of right {de facto 
et de jure), no longer able to resist the people who threw 
themselves into their arms, and equally at a loss how to 
defend them against the barbarians, turned their eyes at 
last towards the princes of France. 

The rest is well known. What remains to be said after 
Baronius, Pagi, le Cointe, Marca, Thomassin, Muratori, 
Orsi, and so many others who have forgotten nothing to 
place in its tme light this great period of history ? I shall 
only make two observations, according to the plan I have 
traced out for myself. 

1. The idea of pontifical sovereignty was so universal 
and so incontestable, previously to the donations of the 
Carlovingians, that Pepin, before attacking Astulphus, 
sent to him several ambassadors, in order to induce him 
to re-establish peace, and " to restore the properties of 
the Holy Church of God and of the Roman republic ; " 
and the Pope on his side, through his ambassadors, con- 
jured the Lombard king " to restore willingly, and with- 
out effusion of blood, the properties of the Holy Church of 
God and of the republic of the Romans.'' a And, in the 
famous charter, "Ego Ludovicus" (Louis le Debonnaire), 
we read that Pepin and Charlemagne had, by an act of 
donation, long since restored the exarchate to the blessed 
apostle and to the Popes. 5 

a Ut pacifice sine ulla sanguinis effusione, propria S. Dei Ec- 
clesise et reipublicae Rom. redd ant jura. And, above, the ex- 
pression was restituenda. jura. — Orsi, lib. i. chap. vii. p. 94, 
according to Anastasius the librarian. 

b " Exarchatum quem . . . Pepinus rex . . . et genitor noster 
Carolus, imperator, B. Petro et praedecessoribus vestris jam du- 
dum per donationis paginam restituerunt." This passage is 



CHAP. VI.] TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES. 141 

Can there be imagined a more complete forgetfulness of 
the Greek emperors, a clearer and more explicit confession 
of Roman sovereignty ? 

When, afterwards, the French arms had crushed the 
Lombards, and re-established the Pope in all his rights, 
the ambassadors of the Grecian emperor arrived in France, 
to complain and, " in a tone of incivility, to propose to 
Pepin to give up his conquests/' the court of France 
only laughed at them, and not without good cause. Car- 
dinal Orsi here accumulates authorities of the greatest 
weight, to establish that the Popes conducted themselves 
on this occasion according to every rule of morality and 
public law. I shall not repeat what has been said by this 
learned writer ; his work may be easily consulted. a It 
does not appear, besides, that there are doubts on this 
point. 

2. The learned writers quoted above have employed much 
erudition and ingenious reasoning to characterize, with 
accuracy, the species of sovereignty which the French 
emperors established at Rome after the expulsion of the 
Greeks and the Lombards. The public monuments appear 
pretty often to contradict one another ; and it could not 
be otherwise. Sometimes the Pope commands at Rome, 
and sometimes the emperor. This arose from the sove- 
reignty having retained much of that ambiguous appearance 
which we have remarked it as exhibiting before the arrival 
of the Carlovingians. The emperors of Constantinople pos- 
sessed it by right ; the Popes, far from disputing it with 
them, exhorted them to defend it. They preached to the 
people obedience, with the greatest sincerity, and never- 
theless they did everything. After the great establishment 
brought about by the French, the Pope and the Romans, 
accustomed to the kind of government that had preceded, 
willingly allowed things to be conducted on the same 

printed in full, in the new edition of the Annals of Cardinal 
Baronius, torn. xiii. p. 627. — Orsi, ibid. cap. x. p. 204. 
a Orsi, ibid. cap. vii. p. 104 et seqq. 



142 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



footing. They lent themselves even all the more readily 
to this form of administration, as it was recommended by 
gratitude, by affection, and by sound policy. In the midst 
of .the general overthrow which marks this sad but inte- 
resting period of history, the immense quantity of robbers 
which such a state of things supposes— the danger of the 
barbarians, always at the gates of Rome — the republican 
spirit which was beginning to take possession of the minds 
of the Italians — all these causes united, rendered the inter- 
vention of the emperors absolutely indispensable in the 
government of the Popes. But nevertheless, in this undu- 
lating state of things, in which the balance of power appears 
to incline sometimes in contrary directions, it is easy to 
recognize the sovereignty of the Popes, which is often pro- 
tected, sometimes shared de facto with another power, but 
never obliterated. They declare war, they make peace ; 
they dispense justice, they punish crimes ; they coin money, 
they receive and send embassies : even the fact which has 
been perverted into a sort of argument against them, deposes 
in their favour — I allude to that dignity of patrician which 
they had conferred on Charlemagne, on Pepin, and perhaps 
even on Charles Martel ; for the title certainly signified at 
the time the highest dignity a man could enjoy under a 
master.* 

I dread being too copious ; and yet, I say nothing but 
what is strictly necessary to place in its full light one of 
the most interesting points in history. Sovereignty, in its 
natural tendency, resembles the Nile ; it conceals its head. 
That of the Popes alone is an exception to the general law. 
All its elements have been thoroughly disclosed, in order 
that it maybe obvious to all eyes, " et vincat cum judi- 

a Patricii dicti illo saeculo et superioribus, qui provincias cum 
summa auctoritate, sub principum imperio administrabant. — 
Marca, de Concord, sacerd. et imp. i. 12. 

Marca gives here the formula of the oath the patrician took ; 
and Cardinal Orsi has copied it, ch. ii. p. 23. It is remarkable 
that, at the conclusion of the ceremony of taking the oath, the 
patrician received the royal mantle and the diadem. — Ibid. p. 27. 



CHAP. VI.] TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES. 143 

catur/' There is nothing so evidently just in its origin as 
this extraordinary sovereignty. The incapacity, the base- 
ness, the ferocity of the sovereigns who preceded it ; intole- 
rable tyranny exercised over the properties, the persons, 
and the conscience of the people ; the formal abandonment 
of those same people, given up without defence to merciless 
barbarians ; the voice of the western empire deposing its 
ancient ruler ; the new sovereignty which arises, advances, 
and takes the place of its predecessor without a struggle, 
without rebellion, without effusion of blood ; impelled by a 
secret, inexplicable, invincible force, and, to the last mo- 
ment, swearing faith and fidelity to the feeble and contemp- 
tible power it was destined so soon to replace ; the right of 
conquest, in fine, obtained and solemnly ceded by one of 
the greatest men that ever existed — by a man so great, 
that greatness has pervaded his name, and the voice of 
mankind has proclaimed it not only great, but grandeur, 
even : such are the title-deeds of the Popes. History offers 
nothing that can be at all compared to them. 

The sovereignty, therefore, is distinguished from all others 
both by its origin and its formation. It also eminently 
differs from them, inasmuch as it never, in the whole period 
of its duration, as I have already observed, exhibited that 
insatiable ambition for territorial aggrandizement which 
characterizes all other powers. In fact, neither by its spi- 
ritual power, which of old it used so freely, nor by its 
temporal power, of which it may always have availed itself 
like any other principality of the same strength, do we ever 
behold it tending to increase its states through the means 
that are too familiar to ordinary policy. So that, after 
having taken into account all human weaknesses, there 
remains, not less, in the mind of every wise observer, the 
idea of a power evidently aided from above. 

In regard to the wars carried on by the Popes, it is 
necessary to explain the words temporal power. It is 
equivocal, as has been stated above, and indeed it expresses 
among French writers, sometimes, the action exercised over 
the temporal state of princes, by virtue of the spiritual 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



power, and sometimes the temporal power which belongs to 
the Pope as sovereign, and which perfectly assimilates him 
to all other sovereigns. 

I shall speak elsewhere of the wars which opinion may 
have laid to the charge of the spiritual power. As to those 
which the Popes have sustained, merely as sovereigns, all 
it appears necessary to say is, that they had as much right 
to make war as other princes ; for no prince has a right to 
wage war unjustly, and every prince has a right to carry 
on a just war. It pleased the Venetians, for instance, to 
seize upon some towns of Pope Julius II., or at least to 
retain them against all the rules of justice. The Prince- 
Pontiff, one of the greatest heads that ever reigned, made 
them repent bitterly of their proceeding. It was a war 
like any other, a temporal affair between princes, and 
utterly foreign to ecclesiastical history. Whence should 
the Pope derive the singular privilege of being unable to 
defend himself ? Since what time has it been the duty of 
a sovereign to let himself be stripped of his states without 
making any resistance ? This would be quite a new thesis, 
and one well calculated to give to robbery the encourage- 
ment it certainly does not stand in need of. 

It is undoubtedly a very great evil that the Popes should 
be obliged to wage war. No doubt, also, Julius II., to 
whom allusion has been made, was too warlike ; never- 
theless, equity absolves him to a degree that is not easily 
determined. "Julius," says the Abbe Feller, "allowed 
the sublime of his position to escape him ; he saw not 
what his wise successors now see so well, that the Roman 
pontiff is the common Father, and that he ought to be the 
arbiter of peace, not a kindler of war." (Diet. Hist.) 

Yes, when it is possible ; but, in such cases, the mode- 
ration of the Pope depends on that of other powers. If he 
is attacked, what will avail him his quality of common 
Father ? Must he restrict himself to blessing the cannons 
that are pointed against him ? When Buonaparte invaded 
the states of the Church, Pius VI. sent an army against 
him : " Impar congressus Achilli I" Nevertheless, he 



CHAP. VI.] TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES. 145 

maintained the honour of sovereignty, and his standard 
was seen in the field. But if other princes had had the 
power and the will to join their arms to those of the Holy 
Father, would the most violent enemy of the Holy See 
have dared to blame that war, and condemn in the subjects 
of the Pope those same exertions which would have covered 
with glory every other man in the world ! 

All the sermons addressed to the Popes on the pacific 
character which becomes their sublime dignity, appear to 
me very little to the purpose, unless there were question of 
offensive and unjust wars, which, I believe, have not 
occurred, or, at all events, so rarely, as by no means to 
affect my general propositions. 

Character, it must still be said, can never be totally 
effaced in the minds of men. It is quite in the power of 
nature to implant in the head and in the heart of the Pope 
the genius and the ascendancy of a Gustavus Adolphus, or 
a Frederick II. Let the chances of an election raise to 
the pontifical throne a Cardinal Richelieu, it will be diffi- 
cult for him to fill it quietly. He must bestir himself ; he 
must show what he is ; he will often be king without being 
pontiff, and rarely even will he prevail upon himself to be 
pontiff without being king. Nevertheless, on these rare 
occasions, in the midst of the impulses of sovereignty, the 
pontiff will always be discovered. Take, for instance, that 
same Julius II. ; he, of all the popes, if I mistake not, 
who appears to have given the greatest hold to criticism in 
respect of war, and compare him with Louis XII. ; since 
history presents them to us in positions absolutely alike, — 
the one at the siege of Mirandola, the other at Peschiera, 
during the league of Cambrai. " The good king, the 
father of the people, ' the courteous gentleman at home/ a 

a Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, &c. torn. iii. chap. cxii. — This 
ill-natured trait requires to be noticed. I boast not the cuirass 
of Julius II., although that of Ximenes deserved some praise ; but 
I will say that, before denouncing the policy of Julius II., we 
must examine that which he was obliged to oppose. The powers 
of the second order do what they can manage to effect ; they are 

L 



146 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK It 



certainly did not pride himself on putting in practice 
towards the garrison of Peschiera his maxims of clemency. a 
All the inhabitants were put to the sword ; the Governor, 
Andre Riva, and his son, were hanged upon the walls/' 6 

Behold on the other hand, Julius II. at the siege of Mi- 
randola ; he yielded, no doubt, in several points, to the 
impulses of his natural character, and his entrance by the 
breach was not exceedingly pontifical, but the moment the 
cannon became silent, he no longer had enemies ; and the 
English historian of Leo X. has preserved some Latin 
verses, in which the poet says elegantly to that warrior 
Pope : " Scarcely is war declared, when you are victorious, 
but you are as ready to pardon as to conquer. Three things 
are as one to you, — battle, victory, and forgiveness. One 
day brought us war ; the morrow its termination, and your 
anger outlived not the hour of strife. The name of Julius 
bears in it something divine, and leaves us in doubt whether 
valour or clemency predominate/' 

Bologna had insulted Julius II. to excess ; it had gone 
so far as to melt down the statues of that haughty pontiff ; 
and, nevertheless, after it was obliged to capitulate at dis- 
cretion, he confined himself to threats and the levy of a 
few fines ; and not long after, Leo X., then cardinal, having 
been named legate in that city, tranquillity continued to 
prevail. In the hands of Maximilian, or even of the good 
Louis XII., Bologna would not have escaped so easily. 

afterwards judged as if they had really done all they desired. 
There is nothing so common, and at the same time so unjust. 
a Hist, of the League of Camhray, liv. i. c. xxv. 
b Life and Pontificate of Leo X. by Mr. William Roscoe. Lon- 
don, M'Oreery, 8vo. 1805, torn. ii. chap. viii. p. 68. 

c Vix helium indictum est quum vincis, nec citius vis 
Vincere quam parcas : haec tria agis pariter. 
Una dedit helium, helium lux sustulit una, 

Nec tibi quam helium longior ira fuit. 
Hoc nomen divinum aliquid fert secum, et utrum sit 
Mitior anne idem fortior, ambigitur. 
(Casanova, post expugnationem Mirandulae, 21st June, 1511 ; 
Roscoe, ibid. p. 85.) 



CHAP. VI.] TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES. 147 

Whoever reads history with attention and without pre- 
judice, will be struck with this difference, even in the 
Popes who, if the expression may be permitted, were least 
Popes (le moins Papes). Besides, all of them, as princes, 
had the same rights as other princes, and it is not allow- 
able to blame them in regard to their political operations, 
even though they should have had the misfortune to do no 
better than their august colleagues. But if it be observed, 
in regard to war in particular, that they have been engaged 
in it less than other princes, that they have carried it on 
with more humanity, that they have never sought it nor 
provoked it, and that, from the time when princes, by a sort 
of tacit convention, which ought not to be overlooked, appear 
to have agreed to recognize the neutrality of the Popes, we 
no longer find the latter mixed up with political intrigues or 
warlike operations ; it is impossible not to acknowledge that 
even in civil affairs they have always maintained that su- 
periority which men have a right to expect from their reli- 
gious character. In a word, it has, sometimes, happened 
to the Popes, as temporal princes, that they conducted them- 
selves no better than other sovereigns. This is the only 
thing with which they can justly be reproached. The rest 
is calumny. 

This word sometimes must be understood to refer to ano- 
malies which ought never to be taken into consideration. 
When I say, for instance, that the Popes, as temporal 
princes, never provoked to war, I do not mean to answer 
for every fact of their long history, examined line for line ; 
none have a right to require this of me. I insist only, 
without making useless admissions, on the general cha- 
racter of the pontifical sovereignty. To judge it soundly, 
we must consider it from a high point of view, and as a 
whole. Short-sighted people should never read history : 
they lose their time. 

But how difficult it is to judge the Popes without preju- 
dice ! The sixteenth century enkindled a mortal hatred to 
the pontiff, and the incredulity of our own, eldest daughter 
of the reformation, could not fail to espouse all the passions 

L 2 



148 



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[BOOK II. 



of its mother. Of this terrible coalition was born a certain 
blind antipathy, which will not even be instructed, and 
which has not yet been swept away by the torrent of 
universal scepticism. In perusing English publications, we 
cannot avoid being struck with astonishment at sight of 
the inconceivable errors with which heads, otherwise most 
sound and estimable, are still preoccupied. 

At the period of the famous debates which took place 
in the year 1805, in the British parliament, on what was 
called " Catholic emancipation/' a member of the House 
of Lords thus expressed himself : " I think, nay, I am 
certain, that the Pope is the miserable puppet of the 
usurper of the throne of the Bourbons ; that he dare not 
move but by Napoleon's command ; and, should he order 
him to influence the Irish priests to rouse their flocks to 
rebellion, he could not refuse to obey the despot/' a 

But the ink which transmitted to us this curious cer- 
tainty was scarcely dry, when the Pope, summoned with 
all the influence of terror to lend himself to the general 
views of Bonaparte against the British, replied, "that, 
being the common father of all Christians, he can have 
no enemies among them ; " b and, rather than bend to the 
wishes of a confederation, acting at first directly, and after- 
wards indirectly, against England, he suffers himself to 
be outraged, driven from his states, imprisoned ; thus, in 
short, commencing that prolonged martyrdom which has 
commended him so much to the admiration and affection of 
mankind. 

a Parliamentary Debates, vol. iv. London, 1805, 8vo. col. 726. 
This choleric and insulting language in the mouth of a peer is 
well calculated to excite surprise ; for it is a general rule, to 
which I would particularly call the attention of every real ob- 
server, that in England hatred of the Pope and of the Catholic 
system is in inverse ratio of the intrinsic dignity of the persons. 
There are exceptions, no doubt ; but few as regards the mul- 
titude. 

b See the note of the Cardinal Secretary of State, dated from 
the palace of the Quirinal, the 19th April, 1808, in reply to that 
of M. Le Febvre, charge d'affaires of France. 



CHAP. VII.] INVIOLABILITY OF MARRIAGE. 149 

If I had now the honour to converse with that noble 
member of the British senate, " who thinks, and is even 
certain/' that the Pope is nothing better than a miserable 
puppet at the orders of the brigands who desire to employ 
him, I would ask him, with all the candour and considera- 
tion due to a man of his class, not what he thinks of the 
Pope, bat what he thinks of himself, when he calls to 
mind that speech. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OBJECTS THE POPES HAD IN VIEW, IN THEIR CONTESTS WITH 
SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 

If we examine, according to the incontestable rule 
just established, the conduct of the Popes during the long 
struggle they maintained against temporal power, we shall 
find that they aimed at the attainment of three distinct 
objects, and that they invariably pursued them by all the 
means which their twofold character of Pontiff and sove- 
reign placed at their disposal : I. To sustain unshaken the 
laws of marriage against the overwhelming influence of 
licentiousness. II. To preserve the rights of the Church 
and the morals of the priesthood. III. To maintain the 
liberty of Italy. 

I. THE INVIOLABILITY OF MARRIAGE. 

A great adversary of the Popes, who has complained 
much of " the scandal of excommunications/'' observes, 
" that it was always marriages, made or broken, which 
added this new scandal to the first/' a 

a Lettres sur l'Histoire. Paris, Nyon, 1805, torn. ii. lettre 
xlvii. p. 485. 

I learn from the public prints that the talents and services 
of the French magistrate, author of these letters, have won for 
him the double distinction of the peerage and the ministry. A 
government which imitates that of Great Britain, could not take 



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[BOOK II. 



Thus, public adultery is a scandal, and the act designed 
to repress it is a scandal likewise. Never did two things 
more different bear the same name. But let us limit 
ourselves, in the meantime, to the indisputable assertion 
" that the Sovereign Pontiffs employed principally spiritual 
arms to restrain the anti-conjugal license of princes. - " 

Now, never did the Popes and the Church in general 
render a more signal service to the world, than in repress- 
ing among princes, by the authority of ecclesiastical cen- 
sures, the violence of a passion which is terrible even in 
men of a gentle disposition, but which, in fiercer charac- 
ters, passes all description, and will always make sport 
of the holiest laws of marriage, wherever it finds itself 
at ease. Love, when it is not tamed to a certain degree, 
by extreme civilization, is a ferocious animal, capable of 
the most horrible excesses. If we would not have it devour 
everything, it must be chained, and it can only be so by 
terror ; but what can he be made to dread, who is above all 
earthly fear? The sanctity of the marriage state, that 
sacred basis of public happiness, is, above all, of the 
highest importance in royal families, in which disorders 
of a certain kind produce consequences that cannot be 
calculated, and the very existence of which men are far 
from suspecting. If, in the youth of the northern nations, 
the Popes had not had the means of alarming the passions 
of sovereigns, the princes, from caprice to caprice, and from 
abuse to abuse, would have ended by establishing, by law, 
divorce, and perhaps even polygamy ; and this disorder 
being repeated, as always happens, in the very lowest 
classes of society, no eye would have been able any longer 
to discover limits to such fearful depravation. 

example from it more happily than in awarding honours to the 
great magistracies. I beg the respectable author will permit me 
to contradict him from time to time, just as I shall find his ideas 
in opposition to mine ; for we are (he and I) a new proof that, 
with views equally upright on either side, it is possible to be dia- 
metrically opposed. This innocent controversy will, I trust, 
serve the cause of truth without wounding courtesy. 



CHAP. VII.] INVIOLABILITY OF MARRIAGE. 151 

Luther, disencumbered of that inconvenient power, which, 
on no point of morality, is more inflexible than on that 
of marriage, was bold enough to write, in his commentary 
on Genesis, published in 1525, " that on the question, 
whether one may have several wives, the authority of the 
patriarchs leaves us free ; that the thing is neither per- 
mitted nor forbidden ; and that, for his part, he gives 
no decision." a Edifying theory ! which soon found its 
application in the house of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. 

Suppose the unsubdued princes of the middle ages had 
been allowed to do as . they pleased in this respect, the 
morals of the Pagan world would soon have re-appeared. b 
The Church, even, notwithstanding its vigilance, and its 
indefatigable efforts — notwithstanding the influence it ex- 
ercised over the minds of men in ages more or less remote, 
— obtained, nevertheless, only doubtful and occasional suc- 
cess. It was victorious only in never giving ground. 

The noble author recently quoted has made very sen- 
sible observations on the repudiation of Eleanor of Guienne : 
" That repudiation/' he says, " made Louis VII. lose the 
rich provinces she had brought him. . . . The marriage 
with Eleanor completed the kingdom, and extended it as 
far as the Sea of Gascony. This was the work of the cele- 
brated Suger, one of the greatest men that ever existed, 
one of the greatest ministers, one of the greatest benefac- 
tors of the monarchy. As long as he lived, he opposed 
a repudiation which was destined to bring upon France 
so many calamities ; but, after his death, Louis VII. re- 
membered only his motives for personal dissatisfaction 
against Eleanor. He ought to have considered that the 

a Bellarmin, de Controv. Christ, fid. Ingolst. 1601, fol. torn. iii. 
col. 1734. 

b The kings of the Franks — Gontran, Caribert, Sigibert, Chil- 
peric, Dagobert — had several wives at the same time, without 
exciting a murmur ; and, if it was a scandal, it occasioned no 
commotion. — Volt. Essai sur l'Histoire Gen. torn. i. cap. xxx. 
p. 146. 

Admitting the fact, it only proves how much such-like princes 
required to be repressed. 



152 



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[book IT. 



marriages of kings are something else than merely family 
affairs : they are, and they were then particularly, 
political treaties, which cannot be changed without giving 
the severest blows to the states whose destiny they have 
regulated." a 

He could not have spoken more to the purpose ; but 
not long ago, when there was question of marriages in 
regard to which the Pope had thought it necessary to 
interpose his authority, our author took a very different 
view of the matter, and the action of the Sovereign Pontiff, 
designed to prevent public adultery, was nothing better 
than a second scandal, added to the scandal of adultery. 
Such is the overwhelming influence of worldly and national 
prejudices, and of the esprit de corps, even over the best 
constituted minds ; it was, however, very easy to under- 
stand that a great man, capable of checking an impassioned 
prince, and an impassioned prince capable of allowing him- 
self to be guided by a great man, are two phenomena so 
rare, that, with the exception of the happy chance which 
brought into relation such a minister and such a prince, 
there is nothing in the world so rare. 

The writer I have quoted, says, right well, " they were 
then, particularly/' Undoubtedly, then, particularly ! 
Remedies were therefore necessary then, which may be dis- 
pensed with, which would even be hurtful, now-a-days. 
A high state of civilization tames the passions ; in ren- 
dering them, perhaps, more abject and more contaminating, 
it takes from them, at any rate, that ferocious impetuosity 
which characterizes a barbarian age. Christianity, which 
never ceases from labouring to improve mankind, chiefly 
displayed its influence in the youth of nations ; but all 
the power of the Church would be null, if it were not con- 
centrated in one chief, a stranger and a sovereign. The 
priest who is a subject, is always wanting in strength, and 
perhaps he ought to be so, in regard to his sovereign. Pro- 
vidence may raise up an Ambrose (rara avis in terris !) 
to strike terror into another Theodosius ; but, in the ordi- 
a Lettres sur l'Histoire, ibid, lettre xlvi. p. 479_a 481. 



CHAP. VII.] INVIOLABILITY OF MARRIAGE. 153 

nary course of things, good example and respectful remon- 
strance are all that ought to be expected of the priesthood. 
God forbid that I should deny the merit and the real 
efficacy of such means ! But for the great work in 
preparation, other appliances were needed ; and to ac- 
complish it, as far as the weakness of our nature would 
permit, the Popes were chosen. They have done all that 
could be done for the glory, the dignity, and the preser- 
vation especially of sovereign houses. What other power 
could even suspect the importance of the laws of marriage, 
on the throne particularly ? And what other power could 
cause them to be put in force, in that high position ? Has 
our grosser age been able even to give its attention to one 
of the most profound mysteries of the world? It would 
not, however, be difficult to discover certain laws, nor even 
to show, if it could be done without failing in respect, how 
they are sanctioned by well-known events ; but what can 
be said to men who believe that they can make sovereigns ? 

This book not being a history, I shall not accumulate 
quotations. It will suffice to observe generally, that the 
Popes laboured without intermission, and that they alone 
could so labour, to maintain on thrones the purity and 
indissolubility of marriage, and that for this reason, if 
there were no other, they would deserve to be placed at 
the head of the benefactors of mankind. " For the mar- 
riages of princes (these are the words of Voltaire) consti- 
tute, in Europe, the destiny of the people ; and never was 
there a court wholly abandoned to debauchery, but there 
were also revolutions and even seditions." a 

This same Voltaire, it is true, after having borne wit- 
ness in this splendid manner to the truth, dishonours 
himself elsewhere, by a glaring contradiction, which he 
endeavours to sustain by a pitiful remark : 

" The adventure of Lotharius/' says he, " was the first 
scandal, in regard to marriage, among the crowned heads 

a Voltaire, Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. iii. chap. ci. p. 518 ; 
chap. cii. p. 520. 



154 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



of the West." a Here we have the word scandal applied 
with the same propriety which we admired above ; but 
what follows is exquisite : " The ancient Romans and the 
nations of the East were more fortunate in this matter." b 

How signally absurd ! The ancient Romans had no 
kings ; in later times they were ruled by monsters. The 
people of the East have polygamy with all its results. We 
also, in our days, should have monsters to rule over us, 
or polygamy, or both the one and the other, without the 
Popes. 

Lotharius, having repudiated his wife Theutberga, in 
order to espouse Waldrada, caused his new marriage to be 
sanctioned by two councils, the one assembled at Metz, 
and the other at Aix-la-Chapelle. Pope Nicholas I. an- 
nulled it, and his successor, Adrian II., made the king 
swear, whilst giving him the holy communion, that he had 
sincerely quitted Waldrada (which, however, was not the 
case), and exacted the same oath from all the nobles by 
whom Lotharius was accompanied. These courtiers almost 
all died suddenly, and the king himself expired, exactly 
one month after his oath. Upon this Voltaire was sure to 
tell us that historians failed not to pronounce the event 
miraculous. c In reality men are often astonished at things 
less astonishing ; but there is not question here of miracles ; 
let it suffice to observe, that those great and memorable 
acts of spiritual authority deserve the unfailing gratitude 
of mankind, and never could have emanated but from the 
Sovereign Pontiffs. 

And when Philip, king of France, in 1092, resolved to 
espouse a woman already married, were not the Archbishop 
of Rouen, the Bishops of Senlis and of Bayeux, so good as to 
bless that strange marriage, notwithstanding the opposition 
of Ives and Chartres ? 

" When a king commands crime, he is too readily obeyed." 

The Pope alone, therefore, could offer effectual opposi- 

a Voltaire, Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. i. chap. xxx. p. 449. 
b Ibid. torn. i. chap. xxx. p. 499. c Ibid. 



CHAP. VII.] INVIOLABILITY OF MARRIAGE. 155 

tion ; and, far from showing an excess of severity, he was 
satisfied at last with a promise which was but imperfectly 
fulfilled. 

In these two examples we behold all the rest. The right 
of opposition could not be better placed, even temporally, 
than in a power that is both foreign and sovereign. For 
there is no leze majesty between majesties which thwart one 
another, counterbalance one another, or even come directly 
into collision, none being degraded by combating their 
equals ; whereas, if the opposition be in the state itself, 
each act of resistance, in whatever way it may arise, com- 
promises sovereignty. 

The time is come when, for the happiness of mankind, 
it is highly desirable the Popes should resume an enlight- 
ened jurisdiction over the marriages of princes, not by a 
terrible veto, but by simple refusals, which ought to satisfy 
the reason of Europe. Fatal religious discords have divided 
the European world into three great families — the Latin, 
the Protestant, and that which is called Greek. This 
schism has narrowed exceedingly the circle of marriages in 
the Latin family ; with the other two there is less danger, 
no doubt, the indifference in regard to dogma lending itself 
without difficulty to every kind of arrangement ; but with 
us the danger is immense. If a remedy is not speedily ap- 
plied, all the august races will decline rapidly to destruc- 
tion, and it would undoubtedly be a very criminal weakness 
to deny that the evil has already begun. Let men make 
haste to reflect on this whilst it will yet avail them. Every 
new dynasty being a plant which grows only in human 
blood, contempt of the most evident principles exposes 
Europe anew, and, consequently the world, to interminable 
carnage. princes ! whom we love, whom we venerate, 
for whom we are ready to shed our blood at the first call, 
save us from wars of succession. We have adopted your 
families ; preserve them ! You have succeeded your fathers ; 
why would you not that your sons should succeed you ? 
And what will our devotedness avail you if you render it 
useless ? Suffer, therefore, truth to reach you ; and, since 



156 



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[BOOK II. 



the most inconsiderate counsels have sealed the lips of the 
High Priest, so as that he dare not tell it you any more, 
permit, at least, that your faithful servants bear it to' your 
ears. 

What law in all nature is more evident than that which 
has ordained that everything which germinates in the uni- 
verse should desire a foreign soil ? The seed is reluctantly 
developed on that same ground which bore the stem it 
sprung from ; the corn of the plains ought to be sown upon 
the high grounds, and that which the mountains produce 
in the plains. The seed of every production is desired to 
be brought from a distance. In the animal kingdom, this 
law is still more striking ; and, accordingly, all legislators 
did homage to it by prohibitions more or less general. 
Among the degenerate nations that forgot themselves so 
far as to permit marriage between brothers and sisters, 
those infamous unions produced monsters. The Christian 
law, one of the distinguishing characteristics of which is, 
that it takes possession of all general ideas to bring them 
together and perfect them, greatly extended those prohibi- 
tions. If there was sometimes excess in this way, it was 
on the side of good, and never did the canons on this 
point equal in severity the laws of Chin a. a In the physical 
order, the animals are our masters. By what deplorable 
blindness does the man who will spend an enormous sum 
to bring together, for instance, the Arabian horse and the 
mare of Normandy, take to himself, nevertheless, without 
the slightest difficulty, a wife of his own blood ? Happily, 
all our faults are not mortal ; but all, however, are faults, 
and all become mortal by continuation and repetition. 
Every organic form bearing within itself a principle of de- 
struction, if two of these principles come to be united, they 
will produce a third form incomparably worse ; for all the 
powers which unite not only add to one another, but also 
multiply. "Would the Sovereign Pontiff, by any chance, 

a There are only one hundred names in China, and marriage 
is prohibited between all persons who bear the same name, even 
although there be no relationship. 



CHAP. VII.] INVIOLABILITY OF MARRIAGE. 157 

possess the right to dispense with physical laws ? A sin- 
cere and systematic partisan of his prerogatives, such an 
one, I must confess, was quite unknown to me. Is not 
modern Rome taken by surprise, or in a fit of absence, 
when history informs her what was thought in the age of 
Tiberius and Caligula, of certain unions then unheard of ? a 
and would not those accusing lines which resounded in the 
theatres of old, repeated to-day by the lips of sages, meet 
with at least a feeble echo within the walls of St. Peter's ? b 

No doubt extraordinary circumstances exact sometimes, 
or at least permit, extraordinary dispositions ; but it must 
be remembered also, that every exception to the law, ad- 
mitted by the law, only requires to be pronounced law. 

Even although my respectful voice should reach those 
exalted spheres, where prolonged errors may produce such 
baneful consequences, it cannot there be taken for that of 
boldness or imprudence. God has given to candour, to 
fidelity, to uprightness, accents which it is not possible 
either to counterfeit or misunderstand. 

II. MAINTENANCE OF ECCLESIASTICAL LAWS AND 
OF THE MORALS OF THE CLERGY. 

It may be literally said, begging pardon for a too familiar 
expression, that towards the tenth century the human race 
in Europe had run mad. From the intermingling of Ro- 
man corruption with the ferocity of the barbarians who had 
inundated the empire, there resulted at last a state of things 
which happily will never perhaps be witnessed any more. 
Ferocity and debauchery, anarchy and poverty, were in 
every state. Never was ignorance more general. To de- 
fend the Church against the fearful torrent of corruption 
and moral darkness, nothing less was necessary than a power 
of a superior order, and altogether new in the world. This 
power was that of the Popes. They themselves, in that 

a Tacite, Ann. xii. 5, 6, 7. 

b Seneca Trag. Octav. i. 138, 139. 

e Voltaire, Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. i. ch. xxxviii. p. 533. 



158 



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[BOOK II. 



miserable age, paid a fatal but passing tribute to the gene- 
ral disorder. The Pontifical Chair was oppressed, disho- 
noured, stained with blood ; a but it speedily resumed its 
ancient dignity, and to the Popes was the world indebted 
for the new order of things which was established. b 

It would be quite allowable, no doubt, to express indig- 
nation at the dishonesty which insists with so much bitter- 
ness on the vices of some Popes, without saying a word 
about the awful depravation which prevailed in their time. 

I pass now to the great question which made so much 
noise in the world — the question of investitures, agitated 
at that time with a degree of ardour which men, even 
tolerably well informed, are at a loss to understand now- 
a-days. 

Assuredly it was not a vain quarrel. The temporal 
power openly threatened to extinguish ecclesiastical supre- 
macy. The feudal spirit which then predominated was 
tending to reduce the Church in Germany and Italy to a great 
fief holding of the emperor. Words, always dangerous, were 
so particularly on this point, inasmuch as that of benefice 
belonged to feudal language, and expressed equally the fief 
and the ecclesiastical title, for the fief was eminently the 
benefice or benefit* Laws even were required to prevent 
prelates from giving in fief the property of the Church, all 
men desiring to be either vassal or superior. d 

Henry V. demanded either that the investitures should 
be given up to him, or that the bishops should be obliged 

a Voltaire, Essai sur PHist. Gen. torn. i. ch. xxxiv. p. 416. 

b " It is astonishing, that, under so many Popes of such scan- 
dalous lives (tenth century), the Roman Church did not lose 
either its prerogatives or its pretensions." — Voltaire, ibid, 
ch. xxxv. 

It is well to say " it is astonishing :" the phenomenon, hu- 
manly speaking, is inexplicable. 

c Sic progressum est ut ad filios deveniret (feudum), in quem 
scilicet dominus hoc vellet beneficium pertinere. — Consuet. Feud, 
lib. i. tit. i. sec. i. 

d Episcopum vel abbatem feudum dare non posse. — Ibid. lib. i. 
tit, vi. 



CHAP. VII.] ECCLESIASTICAL LAWS. 



159 



to renounce all the great properties and all the rights which 
they held of the empire. a 

In this pretension there is manifestly confusion of ideas. 
The prince considered only the temporal possessions and 
the feudal title. Pope Calistus II. proposed to him to 
establish things on the same footing they were on in France, 
where, although the investitures were not taken with the 
ring and crosier, the bishops failed not fully to acquit 
themselves of their duties on account of the temporalities 
and the fiefs. b 

At the Council of Rheims, held in 1119, by that same 
Calistus II., the French already proved what a nice ear 
they had ; for the Pope having said, " We expressly forbid 
to receive at the hands of a lay person the investiture 
either of churches or of ecclesiastical property," the whole 
assembly exclaimed against him, because the canon ap- 
peared to refuse to princes the right of bestowing fiefs and 
regales depending on their crowns. But as soon as the 
Pope had changed the expression, and said, "We absolutely 
forbid to receive from lay persons the investiture of bishop- 
rics and abbeys/' there was but one voice in approbation 
of the decree and the sentence of excommunication. There 
were at this council at least fifteen archbishops, two hun- 
dred bishops of France, Spain, England, and even Ger- 
many. The king of France was present, and Suger gave 
his approbation. 

This celebrated minister speaks only of Henry V. as a 
parricide, devoid of all feeling of humanity ; and the king 
of France promised to the Pope that he would assist him 
with all his power against the emperor. 

This is no caprice of the Pope, but the opinion of the 
whole Church, and that, moreover, of the most enlightened 
temporal power of the time to which reference could be 
made. 

Pope Adrian IV. gave a second example of the extreme 

a Maimbourg, Hist, de la Decad. de l'Empire, torn. ii. liv. iv. 
an 1109. 

b Id. ib. an 1119. c Id. ib. an 1119. 



160 



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[BOOK II. 



attention which was necessary at that time for distinguish- 
ing things which could not either differ more widely, or 
approach one another more nearly. This Pope having 
advanced, without, perhaps, weighing well what he said, 
that the emperor (Frederick I.) held of him the benefice 
of the imperial crown, that prince believed it to be his 
duty to contradict him publicly in a circular letter ; upon 
which the Pope, seeing what alarm the word benefice had 
excited, hastened to explain, declaring that by benefice he 
had meant benefit. 

Meanwhile the emperor of Germany sold publicly eccle- 
siastical benefices. The priests carried arms ; a a scandalous 
concubinage stained the sacerdotal order ; there was want- 
ing only some wrong head to annihilate the priesthood by 
proposing the marriage of priests as a remedy for greater 
evils. The Holy See alone was able to resist the torrent, 
and, at least, to place the Church in such a position as 
that she could wait, without being totally subverted, the 
reformation which was destined to be brought about in 
succeeding centuries. Let us listen once more to Vol- 
taire, whose natural good sense makes it to be regretted 
that passion so often deprives him of it : " It follows from 
the whole history of those times, that society in the nations 
of the West had few certain rules, that states had few laws, 
and that the Church desired to supply this want/' b 

But among all the Pontiffs called to this great work, 
St. Gregory VII. appears in greatest majesty. 

Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi. 

The historians of his time, even those whom their birth 
might have inclined to the side of the emperors, have done 

a Maimbourg, ibid. liv. iii. an 1074. " Frederick tarnished by 
several acts of tyranny the lustre of bis fine qualities. He 
quarrelled unnecessarily with different popes ; he seized upon 
the revenues of vacant edifices, appropriated the nomination to 
bishoprics, and openly made simoniacal traffic in what was 
sacred." — Vies des Saints, trad, de 1' Anglais, in 8vo. torn. iii. 
p. 522, Saint Guldin, 18th April. 

b Volt. Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. i. ch. xxx. p. 50. 



CHAP. VII.] 



ECCLESIASTICAL LAWS. 



161 



full justice to this great man. " He was/' says one of 
them, " a man profoundly versed in sacred letters, and 
brightly adorned with all kinds of virtues/'* " He illus- 
trated/' says another, " in his conduct, all the virtues which 
his lips taught mankind ;" b and Fleury, who, as is well 
known, has no great indulgence for the Popes, nevertheless 
does not refuse to acknowledge that Gregory VII. " was a 
virtuous man, born with great courage, educated in the 
most severe monastic discipline, and full of ardent zeal for 
purifying the Church of the vices with which he beheld it 
infected, particularly of simony and the incontinency of the 
clergy." c 

It was a splendid moment, and one which would furnish 
the subject of a very beautiful painting, that of the inter- 
view of Canossa, near Reggio, in 1077 ; when this Pope, 
holding the Eucharist in his hands, turned towards the 
emperor, and summoned him to swear, as he himself swore, 
on his eternal saltation, that he had never acted except with 
perfect purity of intention, for the glory of God and the 
happiness of the people, whilst the emperor, overwhelmed 
by his conscience, and by the influence of the pontiff, dared 
not repeat the formula, nor receive the communion. 

Gregory, therefore, presumed not too much upon himself, 
when, with the utmost reliance on his own strength, un- 
dertaking the mission of instituting the sovereignty of 
Europe, still young at that epoch, and in the wild strength 
of its passions, he wrote these remarkable words : " We 
take pains, with the divine assistance, to provide emperors, 
kings, and other sovereigns with the spiritual arms of which 
they stand in need, to appease in their dominions the un- 
ruly tempests of pride." That is to say, I teach them 

a Virum sacris litteris emditissimum et omnium virtutum ge- 
nere celeberrimum. (Lambert de Schafnabourg, the most faithful 
historian of those times.) — Maimbourg, ibid. ann. 1071 ad 1076. 

b Quod verbo docuit exemplo declaravit. (Othon de Frisingue, 
ibid. ann. 1073.) The testimony of this annalist is above sus- 
picion. 

c Disc. iii. sur l'Hist. Eccles. No. 17, and Disc. iv. No. 1. 
M 



162 



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[book n. 



that A king is not a tyrant ; and who besides himself 
could have taught them such a lesson ? a 

Maimbourg seriously complains, " that the imperious 
and inflexible temper of Gregory VII. could not permit 
him to accompany his zeal with that admirable moderation 
which distinguished his five predecessors/' 5 

Unfortunately, the admirable moderation of those pon- 
tiffs corrected nothing, and they were invariably slighted. 
Never was violence put a stop to by moderation. Never 
are powers balanced except by efforts in contrary directions. 
The emperors carried their proceedings against the Popes 
to unheard-of excesses, of which mention is never made ; 
the latter in their turn may have passed sometimes the 
bounds of moderation, in regard to the emperors, and great 
noise is made about those somewhat exaggerated acts, which 
are exhibited as crimes. But human affairs are never other- 
wise. No political amalgamation could ever be brought 
about except by the intermingling of different elements, 
which, having clashed at first, ended by combining and 
settling down in tranquillity. 

The Popes disputed not with the emperors' investiture 
by the sceptre, but only investiture by the crosier and the 
ring. This was nothing, it will be said. . On the contrary, 
it was everything. And how would they have contested 
the point so keenly on either side, if the question had not 
been important ? The Popes did not even call in question 
the elections, as Maimbourg proves by the example of 

a Imperatoribus et regibus, cseterisque principibus, ut elationes 
maris et superbia? fluctus comprimere valeant arma huniilitatis, 
Deo auctore, providere curamus. 

Of this great man, nevertheless, Voltaire has presumed to say : 
" The Church has numbered him among the saints, as the people 
of antiquity deified their defenders ; and sages have ranked him 
among fools." (Tom. iii. ch. xlvi. p. 44.) Gregory VII. a fool ! 
and a fool in the opinion of sages, such as the ancient defenders of 
the people\! 7 7 Well — but, there is no refuting a fool (here the ex- 
pression is correct) ; it is sufficient to let him appear and speak. 

b Hist, de la Decad., &c. liv. iii. ann. 1073. 



CHAP. VII.] ECCLESIASTICAL LAWS. 



163 



Suger. a They consented, moreover, to investiture by 
respect ; by which is understood, that they did not hinder 
the prelates, considered as vassals, from receiving at the 
hands of their lord paramount, by feudal investiture, that 
primary and mixed dominion (ce mere et mixte empire), 
according to the language of feudal times, real essence of 
the fief, which supposes, on the part of the feudal lord, a 
participation in the sovereignty, paid for to the lord para- 
mount who is its source, by political dependence and military 
service. 5 

But they would not have investiture by the crosier and 
the ring, lest the temporal sovereign, by making use of 
these two religious insignia at the ceremony of investiture, 
and in thus changing the benefice into a fief, should appear 
to confer, himself, the spiritual title and jurisdiction ; and, 
on this point, the emperor beheld himself at last obliged to 
yield. c But ten years later, Lotharius renewed the contest, 
and endeavoured to obtain from Pope Innocent II. the re- 
establishment of investiture by the crosier and ring (11 31) ; 
so much did this object appear, that is, really was, impor- 
tant ! 

Gregory VII. proceeded farther, no doubt, on this point 

a Hist, de la Decad. &c. liv. iii. ann. 1121. 

b Voltaire is exceedingly witty on the subject of feudal govern- 
ment. " The origin of that species of government," says he, " has 
long been sought for. It must be supposed, that it has no other 
than the ancient custom of all nations to impose homage and 
tribute on the weakest." (Ibid. torn. i. ch. xxxiii. p. 512.) 
Behold the extent of Voltaire's knowledge regarding that govern- 
ment which was, as Montesquieu has observed with much truth, 
at one time unique in history ! All the serious works of Voltaire, 
if he ever did write seriously, sparkle with similar traits ; and it 
is useful to call attention to them, in order that all may be well 
convinced that no degree of wit and talent can give to any man 
the right to speak of what he knows nothing about. 

" Emperors and kings pretended not to confer the Holy Ghost, 
but they desired homage on account of the temporalities they 
might have given. Men fought about an indifferent ceremony." 
(Volt. ibid. ch. xlvi.) Voltaire did not understand the question. 

c Hist, de la De'cad. &c. liv. iii. ann. 1121. 

M 2 



164 



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[BOOK II. 



than the other Popes, since he believed himself entitled to 
dispute with the sovereign the purely, feudal oath of the 
vassal prelate. Here may be seen one of those exaggerations 
to which I have just alluded ; but we must also consider 
the excess which Gregory had in view. He dreaded the 
fief which eclipsed the benefice. He dreaded warrior priests. 
Provided we look from the proper point of view, we shall 
find to be less insufficient than is imagined the reason 
adduced by the Council of Chalons-sur-Saone (1073), for 
withdrawing ecclesiastics from feudal service : — " That the 
hands which consecrated the body of Jesus Christ ought 
not to be placed within those which were too often stained 
by the effusion of human blood ; and also, perhaps, by 
rapine and other crimes/' a Every age has its prejudices, 
and its peculiar way of thinking, according to which it 
ought to be judged. Ours is guilty of intolerable sophistry, 
in constantly maintaining that what would merit condem- 
nation now-a-days, was equally to be condemned in past 
times ; and that Gregory VII. ought to have proceeded in 
regard to Henry IV. as would Pius VII. towards his 
Majesty the Emperor Francis II. 

Pope Gregory VII. is accused of having sent too 
many legates ; but he did so for no other reason than 
that he could not rely on the provincial councils ; and 
Fleury, who cannot be suspected, and who preferred those 
councils to the legates, 5 admits, nevertheless, that if the 
German prelates dreaded so much the arrival of the legates, 
it was because they were conscious of simony, and saw their 

a It is well known that the vassal, in taking the oath, which 
preceded the investiture, held his hands joined within those of his 
lord. 

The council declared it execrable that pure hands, which could 
create God, &c. (Humel's William Rufus, ch. v.) The expres- 
sion to create God well deserves to be remarked. In vain do 
we repeat that the assertion " this bread is God " can only be that 
of the unwise. (Bossuet, Hist, des Var. liv. ii. No. 3.) Protes- 
tants themselves will probably come to an end before they make 
an end of reproaching us on this head. 

b Disc. iv. No. 11. 



CHAP. VII.] LIBERTY OF ITALY. 165 

judges approach.* 1 In short, it was all over with the 
Church, humanly speaking ; it had no longer any form or 
government, and soon, too, it would no longer have had a 
name even, but for the extraordinary intervention of the 
Popes, who substituted their own for erring or corrupt 
authorities, and governed in a more direct manner, for the 
purpose of re-establishing order. 

There would have been an end, also, to European 
monarchy, if certain detestable sovereigns had not en- 
countered in their path a formidable impediment ; and, to 
speak only at present of Gregory VII. , I doubt not but 
every equitable man will subscribe to the perfectly dis- 
interested opinion expressed by the historian of the revo- 
lutions of Germany : — " The simple exposition of the facts/' 
says he, " demonstrates that the conduct of this pontiff 
was that which every man of a firm character and en- 
lightened mind would have held in the same circumstances/' b 
In vain will men struggle against truth ; all candid minds 
must at length agree to this decision. 

III. LIBERTY OF ITALY. 

The third object the Popes incessantly pursued, as 
temporal princes, was the liberty of Italy, which they 
desired to withdraw entirely from the power of Germany. 

" After the three Othos, the combat between German 
domination and Italian liberty remained for a long time in 
the same state. c It appears to me obvious that the real 
origin of the quarrel was, that the Pope and the Romans 
would not have emperors at Rome d which means, that 
they would not have masters among them. 

Here are the facts. The posterity of Charlemagne was 
extinct. Neither Italy, nor the Popes particularly, owed 

a Hist. Eccles. liv. xlii. No. 11. 

b Rivoluzione della Germania, di Carlo Denina, Firenze, 
Piatti, in 8vo. torn. ii. cap. v. p. 49. 

c Voltaire, Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. i. ch. xxxvii. p. 526. 
d Ibid. ch. xlvi. 



166 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



anything to the princes who replaced it in Germany. 
" Those princes settled everything by the sword. a The 
Italians had undoubtedly a more natural right to liberty 
than a German had to be their master. 5 The Italians 
never obeyed, but with reluctance, the German blood ; and 
that liberty which the towns of Italy so ardently worshipped, 
paid little respect to the possession of the German Csesars." c 
In those unhappy times, " the papacy was venal, as well 
as almost all the bishoprics ; if the authority of the 
emperors had continued, the Popes would only have been 
their chaplains, and Italy their slave/'' d 

" The imprudence of Pope John XII. in having called 
the Germans to Rome, was the source of all the calamities 
with which Rome and Italy were afflicted during so many 
ages/' e The pontiff saw not what sort of pretensions he 
was about to let loose, and the incalculable influence of a 
name borne by a great man. " It does not appear that 
Germany, under Henry the Fowler, pretended to be the 
empire ; it was otherwise under Otho the Great/' f This 
prince, who knew his strength, "made himself be crowned, 
and obliged the Pope to swear fealty to him. g The 
Germans, therefore, held the Romans in subjection, and 
the Romans shook off the yoke as soon as they were able/' h 
Such was the whole public law of Italy during that melan- 
choly period, when men absolutely acted without principle. 
" The right of succession, even, (that Palladium of public 
tranquillity), did not appear to be at that time established 
in any state of Europe/ Rome knew neither what she 
was nor to whom she belonged/ The custom came to be 

* Voltaire, Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. ii. ch. xlvii. p. 57. 

b Ibid. torn. ii. ch. xlvii. p. 56. 

c Ibid. ch. lxi. and lxii. 

d Ibid. torn. i. ch. xxxviii. p. 329 to 431. 

e Ibid. ch. xxxvi. p. 521. 

f Ibid. torn. ii. ch. xxxix. pp. 513, 514. 

b Ibid. torn. i. ch. xxxvi. p. 521, 

h Ibid. p. 522, 523. 

5 Ibid. ch. ad. p. 261. 

i Ibid. ch. xxxvii. p. 527. 



CHAP. VII.] 



LIBERTY OF ITALY. 



167 



established of giving crowns, not by the right of blood, but 
by the votes of the nobles. a 

" Nobody knew what the empire was. b There were no 
laws in Europe. Neither right of birth, nor right of 
election was acknowledged ; Europe was a chaos, in which 
the strongest raised themselves on the ruins of the weak, 
to be afterwards in their turn overthrown. The whole 
history of those times is only that of some barbarian 
captains; who disputed with the bishops the privilege of 
ruling over imbecile serfs. d 

" There was really no longer an empire, either by law 
or in fact {de jure or de facto). The Romans, who had 
confided themselves to Charlemagne by acclamation, would 
not acknowledge bastards — strangers who were scarcely 
masters of a fragment of Germany. It was an odd sort of 
Roman Empire. 6 The Germanic body styled itself the 
Holy Roman Empire, whilst in reality it was neither 
Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire/ 

" It appears evident, that the great design of Frederick II. 
. was to establish in Italy the throne of the new Caesars, and 
it is quite certain, at least, that he desired to reign over 
Italy with unlimited and undivided sway. This was the 
hidden root of all his quarrels with the Popes ; he employed, 
by turns, craft and violence, and the Holy See combated 
him with the same arms. g The Guelfs, those partisans 
of the papacy, but still more the friends of liberty, 
always balanced the power of the Ghibellines, partisans of 
the empire. The object of the differences between Frederick 
and the Holy See never was religion/' h 

a Voltaire, Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. i. ch. xxxvii. p. 527. 

b Ibid. torn. ii. ch. xlvii. p. 56, ch. lxiii. p. 223. 

c Ibid. torn. ii. ch. xxiv. 

d Ibid. torn. i. ch. xxxii. p. 508, 509, 510. 

e Ibid. torn. ii. ch. lxvi. p. 267. f Ibid. 

s That is to say, with the sword and with 'policy. I should like 
to be informed what new arms were brought to light in those 
days, and what the Popes ought to have done at the time of which 
there is question. — Voltaire, torn. ii. ch. Hi. p. 98. 

h Volt. Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. ii. ch. lii. p. 98. 



168 



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[BOOK II. 



With what face can the same author, forgetting these 
solemn avowals, take upon him to tell us elsewhere : — 
" From the time of Charlemagne till our days, the war of 
the empire and the priesthood was the source of all revo- 
lutions ; it is the clue to the labyrinth of modem history?" a 
In what respect, in the first place, is modern a labyrinth 
more than ancient history ? 

For my part, I must acknowledge that I understand 
more about the Capetian dynasty than that of the Pha- 
raohs ; but we may overlook this error of expression, much 
less erroneous than the things expressed. What does Voltaire 
mean by his clue, admitting, as he formally does, that the 
deadly struggle between the two parties in Italy was wholly 
foreign to religion ? It is false that there was a war in the 
real sense of the term, between the empire and the priest- 
hood. That there was, the enemies of the Church have 
never ceased to repeat, in order to render the priesthood 
responsible for all the blood that was shed during that great 
struggle ; but it was in reality a war between Germany and 
Italy — between usurpation and liberty — between the master 
who imposes fetters and the slave who would shake them 
off — a war in which the Popes did their duty as Italian 
princes and wise politicians, in espousing the cause of Italy, 
since they could neither favour the emperors without dis- 
honouring themselves, nor even attempt to remain neutral 
without hastening to destruction. 

Henry VI., king of Sicily and emperor, having died at 
Messina in 1197, a war of succession broke out in Germany 
between Philip, duke of Suabia, and Otho, son of Henry 
Leo, duke of Saxony and Bavaria. The latter was de- 
scended from the house of the Princes of Este Guelf, and 
Philip of Ghibelline princes. 13 The rivalry of these two 

a Volt. Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. iv. ch. cxcv. p. 369. 
b Muratori, Antich. Ital. in 4to. Monaco, 1766, torn. iii. dis- 
sert, li. p. 111. 

It is remarkable, that although these two factions were born 
in Germany, and came from thence into Italy, as it were, ready 
made, the Guelf princes, nevertheless, before reigning in Bavaria 



CHAP. VII.] 



LIBERTY OF ITALY. 



169 



princes gave birth to the two celebrated factions which for 
such a length of time made Italy desolate ; but there was 
nothing more foreign to the Popes and the priesthood. 
Civil war once kindled, it was quite necessary to take a side 
and join battle. By their character, which was so much 
respected, and by the immense authority which they pos- 
sessed, the Popes were naturally placed at the head of the 
noble party with whom were propriety, justice, and na- 
tional independence. The imagination then became accus- 
tomed to see only the Pope instead of Italy ; but of that 
country in reality there was question, and by no means of 
religion. This fact cannot be too often repeated. 

The venom of those two factions had penetrated so deeply 
into the hearts of the Italians, that, as they became divided, 
the very words lost their original acceptation, and the terms 
Guelf, Ghibelline, at last came only to denote persons who 
hated one another. During this terrible fever the clergy 
did what they will always do. They forgot nothing that 
was in their power in order to re-establish peace, and more 
than once bishops were seen, accompanied by their clergy, 
throwing themselves with the crucifix and the relics of the 
saints between two armies ready to join battle, and conjure 
them, in the name of religion, to avoid the effusion of 
human blood. They did much good, without being able to 
extinguish the evil. a 

" There is no Pope/' — and this is also the language of a 
severe censor of the Holy See, — " who has not reason to 
dread the aggrandizement of the emperors in Italy. The 
ancient pretensions will be found sufficient the day they can 
be made available and advantageous." b 

There never, therefore, was a Pope whose duty it was 

and Saxony, were Italians ; so that the faction of this name, in 
arriving in Italy, seemed to return to the land of its origin. 

a Muratori, ibid. p. 110. — Lettres sur l'Histoire, torn. iii. liv. 
lxiii. p. 230. 

b Lettres sur l'Histoire, torn. iii. lett. lxiii. p. 230. 
Further admissions of the same author, torn. ii. lett. lxiii. p. 437, 
and lett. xxxiv. p. 316. 



170 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



not to oppose thorn. Where is the charter by which Italy 
was given to the emperors of Germany ? Where was it dis- 
covered that the Pope ought not to act as a temporal prince, 
that he ought to be completely passive, and allow himself 
to be beat, plundered, &c. ? Never will this be proved. 

At the time of Eodolph (1274), "the ancient rights of 
the Empire were lost .... and the new house could not 
claim them without injustice . . . . ; nothing is more in- 
consistent than in maintaining the rights of the Empire 
to reason according to what it was under Charlemagne/'* 

The Popes, therefore, as chiefs of the Italian association, 
and the natural protectors of the people who composed it, 
had every imaginable reason for opposing, with all their 
power, the renewal in Italy of that nominal empire which, 
notwithstanding the titles affixed to its edicts, was neither 
holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. The sack of Milan, one 
of the most horrible events in history, would alone suffice, 
in the opinion of Voltaire, to justify all the proceedings of 
the Popes. h 

What shall we say of Otho II. and his famous banquet 
of the year 981 ? He invites a great number of nobles to 
a magnificent feast, in the course of which an officer of the 
Emperor enters with a list of those whom his master had 
proscribed. They are all conducted to a neighbouring 
apartment, and there put to death. Such were the princes 
with whom the Popes had to deal. 

And when Frederick, with the most abominable inhu- 
manity, caused to be hanged in cold blood relations of the 
Pope, made prisoners in a conquered town, c it was allowable, 

a Lettres sur l'Hist. torn. ii. lett. xxxiv. p. 316. 

b "C'etait bien justifier les Papes que d'en user ainsi." — Volt. 
Essai sur l'Hist. Gen. torn. ii. ch. lxi. p. 156. 

c In 1241. It is worth while to hear Maimbourg on these 
amiable deeds. (Art. ann. 1250.) " The good qualities of Fre- 
derick were obscured by several others of a very bad description, 
and especially by his immorality, by his insatiable desire of ven- 
geance, and by his cruelty, which made him commit great crimes, 
which God, nevertheless, as we may believe, graciously forgave 
in his last illness." Amen. 



CHAP. VII.] 



LIBERTY OF ITALY. 



171 



we should suppose, to make some attempts to get rid of 
such public law. 

The greatest misfortune for man, in a political point of 
view, is to be subject to a foreign power. No humiliation, 
no torture of the feelings, can be compared to it. The 
subject people, unless it be protected by some extraordi- 
nary law, does not think that it obeys the sovereign, but 
the nation of that sovereign. Now, no nation willingly 
obeys another, for the very plain reason that no nation 
understands how to govern another. Observe the wisest 
nations, and those that are best governed at home ; you will 
see, that when there is question of governing other nations, 
they lose all their wisdom, and no longer resemble what 
they are at other times. The thirst of domination being 
innate in man, the desire to make power be felt is not per- 
haps less natural ; the stranger who comes to rule a subject 
people in the name of a distant sovereignty, instead of in- 
forming himself of the national modes of thinking, in order 
to conform to them, appears only too often to study them 
in order to thwart them ; he believes himself to be all the 
more master the more heavy the yoke is made ; he mistakes 
surliness for dignity, and seems to think that dignity better 
attested by the indignation he excites than by the benedic- 
tions he might obtain. 

And hence all nations have concurred in placing among 
the first ranks of great men those fortunate citizens who 
had the honour to extricate their country from a foreign 
yoke. Heroes, if they have succeeded, martyrs, if they 
have failed of success, their names will live throughout all 
ages. Modern stupidity would except only the Popes from 
this universal apotheosis, and deprive them of the immortal 
glory which is due to them as temporal princes, for having 
laboured without ceasing to make their country free. 

It is easily conceived how certain French writers refuse 
to do justice to Saint Gregory VII. Blindfolded by Pro- 
testant, philosophical, Jansenist, and parliamentary preju- 
dices, what can they see through this quadruple bandage ? 
Parliamentary despotism may even go so far as to forbid the 



172 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



national liturgy to attach a certain celebrity to the feast of 
St. Gregory, and the priesthood, in order to avoid dan- 
gerous collisions, will be obliged to yield ; a confessing thus 
the abject servitude of that church, of whose fabulous liber- 
ties we have heard so much. But you who are strangers 
to all these prejudices, you inhabitants of those beautiful 
countries which St. Gregory so ardently longed to enfran- 
chise, you whom gratitude, at least, ought to enlighten, 

Vos 6 

Pompilius sanguis !..... 

Heirs, too, in so many respects of ancient Greece, you to 
whom there is wanting only unity and independence, erect 
altars to the sublime pontiff who did miracles to give you a 
name. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ON THE NATURE OF THE POWER EXERCISED BY THE POPES. 

All that can be said against the temporal authority of 
the Popes, and against the use which they have made of 
it, is found united, and in a manner concentrated, in those 
two violent lines which fell from the pen of a French ma- 
gistrate : " The mad idea of the temporal omnipotence of 
the Popes inundated Europe with blood and fanaticism." 5 

a In France, the festival of Gregory VII. was celebrated by the 
office, Common of .Confessors, the Gallican church (so free as all 
the world knows) not having dared to decree, in his honour, a 
proper office, lest it should fall at variance with the parliaments 
which had condemned the memory of this Pope by decrees of the 
20th July, 1729, and of the 23rd February, 1730.— Zaccharia, 
Anti-Febronius vindicatus, torn. i. dissert, ii. ch.v. p. 387, note 13. 

It merits remark, that those same magistrates who condemn 
the memory of a Pope who has been declared a saint, will com- 
plain loudly that such or such a Pope has monstrously con- 
founded, in practice, the use of the two powers. — Lett, sur l'Hist. 
torn. iii. lett. lxii. p. 221. 

b Lett, sur l'Hist. torn. ii. lett. xxviii. p. 222 ; ibid. lett. xli. 



CHAP. VIII.] POWERS EXERCISED BY THE POPES. 173 

Now, with this writer's permission, it is not true that the 
Popes ever made pretensions to temporal omnipotence ; it is 
not true that the power which they sought was madness, 
and it is not true that that pretension had for nearly four 
hundred years deluged Europe with blood and fanaticism. 

In the first place, when we abstract from the pretension 
attributed to the Popes, the material possession of certain 
countries, and the sovereignty over those countries, what 
remains cannot certainly be called temporal omnipotence. 
Now this is precisely the state of the case, for never did 
the sovereign pontiffs pretend to increase their temporal 
dominions to the prejudice of legitimate princes, nor em- 
barrass the exercise of sovereignty by those princes ; much 
less did they ever take possession of it. They never main- 
tained anything beyond the right of judging the princes 
who were subject to them, in the spiritual order, ivhen those 
princes became guilty of certain crimes. 

This is quite a different thing ; and not only can this 
right, if it exists, not be called temporal omnipotence, but 
it would be called much more correctly spiritual omnipo- 
tence, since the Popes never assumed anything except by 
virtue of their spiritual power ; hence the question is limited 
entirely to the legitimacy and the extent of this power. 

And if the exercise of this power, which is acknowledged 
to be legitimate, entails temporal consequences, the Popes 
cannot be held responsible, since it is impossible that the 
consequences of a true principle should be faults. 

Those writers (the French particularly) have taken 
upon themselves great responsibility, who first broached 
the question whether the sovereign pontiffs possess the 
right to excommunicate sovereigns, and who dilate upon 
the scandal of excommunications generally. Wise men 
are best satisfied to leave certain questions in salutary 
obscurity ; but if principles are attacked, wisdom itself is 
obliged to reply ; but although imprudence has made it 
necessary, it is undoubtedly a great evil. The more men 
advance in the knowledge of things, the more they see the 
propriety of refraining from the discussion, especially in 



174 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



writing about what it is impossible to define by laws ; and 
for this reason the principle alone can be decided, all 
the difficulty lying in its application, which cannot be ex- 
pressed in any written formula. 

Fenelon has said with laconic brevity, in a work which 
was not designed for publication, " The Church can ex- 
communicate the prince, and the prince can put the pastor 
to death. Each ought to use this right only in the greatest 
extremity, but it is really a right/' a . 

This is incontestably true ; but what is the greatest extre- 
mity ? It cannot be defined. We must, therefore, admit 
the principle, and withhold our judgment as to the rules of 
its application. 

Complaint has justly been made of the exaggeration 
which would have the sacerdotal order withdrawn from 
all temporal jurisdiction ; we may with equally good reason 
complain of the contrary exaggeration, which pretends to 
withdraw the temporal power from all spiritual jurisdiction. 

Generally speaking, injury is done to supreme authority 
by seeking to emancipate it from the various checks which 
have been established, less by the deliberate action of men, 
than by the imperceptible influence of customs and opinions ; 
for the people, deprived of their ancient guarantees, are there- 
by driven to seek others, stronger, in appearance, but always 
infinitely dangerous, for this reason, that they are entirely 
founded on theories and reasonings a priori, by which men 
have been constantly led astray. 

There is nothing so incorrect, as has been shown, as 
the words temporal omnipotence, employed to express that 
kind of power which the Popes claimed over other sove- 
reigns. It was, on the contrary, the exercise of a power 
purely and eminently spiritual, in virtue of which they 
believed themselves entitled to strike with excommunica- 
tion the princes who were guilty of certain crimes, without 
any usurpation of their authority, without any suspension 

a Hist, de Fenelon, torn. iii. pieces justif. du liv. vii. ; memoire, 
No. viii. p. 479. 



CHAP. IX.] JUSTIFICATION OF PONTIFICAL POWER. 175 

of their sovereignty, and without the least derogation from 
the dogma of its divine origin. 

There remains not a doubt, therefore, as to the truth of 
the proposition, that the power attributed to the Popes 
cannot, without a signal abuse of language, be called tem- 
poral omnipotence. On this point, also, we may listen 
with advantage to Voltaire. He is much astonished, "at 
that power which could do everything abroad and so little 
at home ; which bestowed kingdoms, and was embarrassed, 
suspended, defied at Rome, and obliged to bring into play 
all the machinery of politics in order to retain or recover a 
village/' He invites us, not without reason, to observe, 
" that those Popes who wished to be too powerful and dis- 
tribute kingdoms, were all persecuted at home/' a 

What, then, is that temporal omnipotence, which has no 
temporal force, which requires nothing temporal or terri- 
torial in foreign states, which anathematizes every attack 
on temporal power, and whose temporal power is so incon- 
siderable, that the burghers of Rome have often made light 
of it? 

The truth, I believe, is only to be found in the contrary 
proposition, that the power in question is purely spiritual. 
To decide what are the precise limits of this power, is an- 
other question, which it is not here the place to inquire 
into. Let me prove only, as I have engaged to do, that 
the pretension to this power, whatever it may be, is by no 
means " a madness." 



CHAPTER IX. 

JUSTIFICATION OF THE PONTIFICAL POWER. 

The writers of the last century have pretty often had 
recourse to an expeditious method of judging institutions. 
They suppose an order of things purely ideal — good, as the 

a Volt. Essai, &c. torn. ii. ch. lxv. 



176 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



suppose, and according to which they proceed, as upon cer- 
tain data, to judge realities. 

Voltaire provides us with an example in this style, and 
which, besides, is exceedingly comical. It is taken from 
his poem, " La Henriade," and has not, as far as I know, 
been remarked : 

" It is amongst us an ancient and sacred custom, that 
when death extends to the throne its rude blows, and the 
stream of royal blood, so dear to the country, is to its last 
drop exhausted, the people at the same time recover pos- 
session of their first rights ; they may choose a master, they 
may change their laws. The assembled states, organs of 
France, name a sovereign, limit his power. Thus did the 
decrees of our august forefathers to the rank of Charlemagne 
exalt the Capets/' a 

The mountebank ! Where did he learn all these fine 
things ? In what book did he read the rights of the people ? 
or from what facts did he derive them ? One would sup- 
pose that dynasties change in France at stated periods, like 
the Olympic games. Two changes in 1300 years ! quite 
an uninterrupted custom this ! and it adds not a little to 
the piquancy of this jest of the poet-philosopher, that at 
neither the one nor the other period was the stream of that 
blood, so dear to the country, to its last drop exhausted. 
It was, on the contrary, in full circulation, when it was 
excluded by a great man, evidently matured beside the 
throne in order to ascend it. b 

a C'est im usage antique et sacre parmi nous : 
Quand la mort sur le trone etend ses rudes coups, 
Et que du sang des rois, si chers a la patrie, 
Dans ses derniers canaux la source s'est tarie, 
Le peuple au meme instant rentre en ses premiers droits ; 
II peut choisir un maitre, il peut changer ses lois. 
Les Etats assembles, organes de la France, 
Nomment un souverain, limitent sa puissance. 
Ainsi de nos ai'eux les augustes decrets 
Au rang de Charlemagne ont place les Capets. (C. vii.) 
b It is proper we should hear ho w Voltaire reasons as an historian 
on this same event. " It is known," he says, " how Hugh Capet 



CHAP. IX.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



177 



Men reason in regard to the Popes, just as Voltaire rea- 
sons in his poem. It is either expressly or tacitly assumed 
as a fact, that the authority of the priesthood cannot in any 
way be united to that of the civil government ; that, ac- 
cording to the economy of the Catholic Church, a sovereign 
cannot be excommunicated ; that time induces no change 
in political constitutions ; that everything must have pro- 
ceeded in ancient times as in our own days, &c. ; and with 
these fine maxims, taken for axioms, it is decided that the 
ancient Popes had gone out of their minds. 

The plainest dictates of sound sense, however, point out 
a very different way of proceeding. Has not Voltaire him- 
self said, " There are so many examples of the union of the 
priesthood with civil authority in other religions V a Now, 
it is not necessary, I should think, to prove that this union 
is infinitely more natural under the sway of a true religion, 
than under that of all other religions, which are necessarily 
false, since they are other than the true. 

We must set out, moreover, from a principle that is both 
general and incontestable, namely, that every government is 
good when it has been established, and has subsisted for 
a long time unquestioned. 

General laws, alone, are eternal. Everything else varies, 
and never does any one time resemble another. Man will, 
no doubt, always be governed, but never in the same way. 
Other manners, other knowledge, other opinions will neces- 
sarily occasion other laws. Names, also, lead astray on this 
head as on many others, because they are adapted to ex- 
press the resemblances of contemporaneous things, an 
sometimes their differences ; they not unfrequently repre- 
sent also things which time has changed, whilst their desig- 

robbed the last king's uncle of the crown. If the votes had been 
free, Charles would have been king of France. It was not a par- 
liament of the nation which deprived him of the right of his an- 
cestors, as so many historians have asserted ; it was what makes 
and unmakes kings — force aided by prudence." (Volt. Essai, 
&c. torn. ii. ch. xxxix.) There is no mention here, as we see, of 
august decrees. He writes on the margin, " Hugh Capet took pos- 
session of the kingdom by open force" 
a Volt. Essai, &c. torn. i. ch. xiii. 

XT 



178 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



nations have remained the same. The word monarchy, for 
instance, may denote two governments, either contemporary 
or separated by time, more or less different under the same 
denomination ; so that we cannot affirm in regard to 
the one, all that may be truly affirmed concerning the 
other. 

" It is, therefore, quite a vain idea, an ungrateful task, 
to pretend to recall everything to ancient usages, and to 
endeavour to fix that wheel which time is ever moving by 
an irresistible impulse. To what period should we have 
recourse ? ... to what century, to what laws should we 
go back ? to what customs should we look ? A citizen of 
Rome would have as good grounds for asking of the Pope 
consuls, tribunes, a senate, popular assemblies, and the com- 
plete re-establishment of the Roman republic ; and a 
burgher of Athens might claim from the Sultan the an- 
cient areopagus and the assemblies of the people, which 
were called churches/' a 

Voltaire is quite right ; but, as soon as there is question 
of judging the Popes, you will find him forgetting his own 
maxims, and speaking to us of Gregory VII. as we should 
speak to-day of Pius VII. if he undertook the same things. 

Meanwhile, all possible forms of government have ap- 
peared in the world, and all are legitimate when once 
they are established ; whilst it never can be permitted to 
reason according to hypotheses without any regard to facts. 
Now, if there be an indisputable fact, attested by all the 
monuments of history, it is, that the Popes in the middle 
age, and even long before that period, exercised great power 
over temporal sovereigns ; that they judged them, excom- 
municated them on certain great occasions, and that not 
unfrequently they even declared the subjects of those princes 
loosed from their oath of fidelity towards them. 

In speaking of despotism and absolute government, people 
seldom know what they are saying. No government has 

a Volt. Essai, &c. torn. iii. ch. lxxxvi. Which means that the as- 
semblies of the people were called assemblies. All the philosophi- 
cal and historical works of Voltaire are filled with traits of brilliant 
erudition. 



CHAP. IX.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



179 



the power to do whatever it pleases. By virtue of a divine 
law, there is always in close proximity to every govern- 
ment some kind of power which acts as a check upon it. 
Whether it be a law, a custom, conscience, a tiara, or a 
poniard, — there is always something. 

Louis XIV. having taken leave to say, one day, in pre- 
sence of some gentlemen of his court, " That he knew not 
a more excellent government than that of the Sophi ; " one 
of them (it was the Marshal d'Estrees, if I mistake not) 
nobly and courageously replied : " But, sire, I have in my 
lifetime seen three of them strangled/' 

Wo to princes if they could do everything ! For their 
happiness and for ours, real omnipotence is impossible. 

Now, the authority of the Popes was the power chosen 
and constituted in the middle ages for balancing temporal 
sovereignty and rendering it supportable to mankind. And 
this, besides, is nothing else than one of those general laws 
of the world which men will not observe, whilst, neverthe- 
less, the evidences of them are incontestable. 

Every nation of the universe has accorded to its priest- 
hood more or less influence in political affairs ; and it has 
been proved to demonstration, " that of all civilized na- 
tions, none have attributed less power and privileges to their 
priests, than the Jews and the Christians/' 4 

Never were barbarous nations matured and civilized 
otherwise than by religion ; and in temporal things, so- 
vereignty has always been the principal object of the care 
of religion. 

" The interest of the human race requires a check which 
shall restrain sovereigns, and protect the lives of the people ; 
the check of religion might have been by a common agree- 
ment in the hands of the Popes. The early pontiffs, by 
meddling with temporal quarrels, only in order to appease 
them, by reminding kings and people of their duties, by 
condemning their crimes, by reserving excommunications 
for great enormities, would always have been looked upon 

a Hist, de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, in 
12mo. torn xv. p. 143. — Traite Historiq. et Dog. de la Religion, 
par l'Abbe Bergier, torn. vi. p. 120. 

N 2 



180 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



as the images of God upon the earth. But men are actually 
come to have nothing else for their defence than the laws 
and manners of each country, — laws that are often despised, 
and manners that are often corrupt. " & 

No man, I am persuaded, ever reasoned more to the 
purpose in favour of the Popes. The people of the middle 
ages had no other laws within themselves, than such as 
were null or despised, and corrupt manners. This indis- 
pensable restraint, therefore, it was necessary they should 
seek from without. It was found, and could only be found, 
in the authority of the Popes. There happened, therefore, 
nothing hut what ought to have happened. 

And what means this great reasoner when he tells us, 
conditionally, that the check, so necessary for the nations, 
might have been, by a general agreement, in the hands 
of the Pope f It was so in reality, not indeed by an ex- 
pressed agreement of the people, which is impossible, but 
by a tacit and universal agreement, acknowledged by the 
princes even, as well as by their subjects, and which has 
produced incalculable blessings. 

If the Popes, sometimes, did more or less than Voltaire 
desires, according to the passage quoted, it can only be said 
that nothing human is perfect, and that there exists not a 
power which never abused its strength, But if, as justice and 
sound reason require, those unavoidable anomalies are left 
out of view, it will be found that the Popes haw in reality 
restrained sovereigns, protected the people, put an end by 
their wise intervention to temporal quarrels, admonished 
kings and nations of their duties, and struck with anathema 
those great crimes they had not been able to prevent. 

We may now judge in what a ridiculous light Voltaire 
places himself when he gravely tells us in the same volume, 
and only at the distance of four chapters, " Those quarrels 
(of the empire and the priesthood) are the necessary conse- 
quence of the most absurd form of government to which 
men were ever subject. The absurdity consists in depending 
on a stranger. " b 

What admirable consistency, Monsieur Voltaire ! You 

s Volt. Essai, &c. torn. ii. ch. Ix. b Ibid. ph. lxv. 



CHAP. IX.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



181 



have, nevertheless, provided us, beforehand, with a refuta- 
tion of yourself, by maintaining quite the contrary of what 
you here assert. Have you not said, " This foreign power 
was loudly demanded by the interest of the human race ; 
the nations, deprived of a foreign protector, finding no other 
support among themselves than manners that were often 
corrupt, and laws that were often despised ? " 

Thus that same power, which at the sixtieth chapter 
is the most desirable and the most precious that can be 
imagined, becomes at the sixty-fifth, the most absurd that 
was ever seen. 

Such is Voltaire ; the most contemptible of writers con- 
sidered only in a moral point of view, and, for that very 
reason, the best witness of the truth when he does homage 
to it by forgetting himself. 

There is nothing more reasonable, nothing more plausible, 
than a moderate influence of the sovereign pontiffs over the 
acts of princes. The emperor of Germany, although without 
a state, was able to enjoy a legitimate jurisdiction over all 
the princes forming the Germanic confederation. Why should 
it not likewise be competent for the Pope to possess a cer- 
tain jurisdiction over all the princes of Christendom ? There 
is surely nothing in this contrary to the nature of things. 
If this power be not established — I say not that it ought to 
be so ; — I solemnly protest that I maintained no such pro- 
position, — but if it be established, it must be legitimate, as 
well as every other authority, for no power has any other 
foundation. The theory is, therefore, in favour of the 
Pope, and, moreover, all the facts are in accordance with 
it. 

Voltaire, if it please him, may call the Pope a foreigner ; 
it is his custom to be superficial. The Pope, in his capa- 
city of temporal prince, is, no doubt, like all other temporal 
princes, a foreigner out of his own states ; but as a sovereign 
pontiff, he is a foreigner nowhere in the Catholic Church, 
any more than the king of France is so at Lyons or at 
Bordeaux. 

" There were moments very honourable for the court of 
Rome \" it is still Voltaire who speaks. " If the Popes 



182 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



had always so used their authority, they would have been 
the legislators of Europe/' 51 

Now it is a fact, attested by the whole history of those 
remote times, that the Popes used their authority with 
wisdom and justice, sufficiently often to entitle them to be 
the legislators of Europe ; and this is all we require. 

It is to no purpose to urge abuses, for "notwithstand- 
ing many disturbances and many scandals, there was always 
in the rites of the Roman Church more decency, more gravity 
than elsewhere. Men understood, that that Church, when 
it was free and well-governed, was designed for the in- 
struction of others, 5 and, in the opinion of the nations, 
the bishop of Rome was a being of greater holiness than 
every other bishop/' 

But whence arose this universal opinion which made the 
Pope something more than a human being, whose purely 
spiritual power caused everything to bend before him ? 
One must be absolutely blind not to see that the esta- 
blishment of such a power was necessarily impossible or 
divine. 

I shall not conclude this chapter without making an 
observation which, I do not think, has been sufficiently 
insisted upon ; it is, that the greatest acts of authority 
which can be referred to on the part of the Popes in 
regard to temporal power were always levelled against an 
elective sovereignty, that is to say, a half-sovereignty, 
which no doubt could be called to account, and could 
even be deposed in the event of mal-administration to a 
certain degree. 

Voltaire has justly remarked, that election necessarily 
supposes a contract between the king and the nation ; d so 
that the elective monarch may always be put on his trial 
and judged. He never possesses that sacred character 
which is the work of time ; for man does not really respect 
anything that he himself has made. He does himself 
justice by despising his own works till God has sanctioned 

Volt. Essai, &c. torn. ii. eh. lx. b Volt. ibid. eh. xlv. 
c The same, ibid. torn. iii. ch. cxxi. d The same, ibid. 



CHAP. IX.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



183 



them by time. Sovereignty, therefore, generally speaking, 
being very ill understood and equally ill secured in the 
middle ages, elective sovereignty in particular had scarcely 
any other consistency than what it derived from the personal 
qualities of the sovereign ; we need not, therefore, be asto- 
nished that it was so often attacked, transferred, or over- 
thrown. The ambassadors of St. Louis said candidly to 
the Emperor, Frederick II., in 1259, " We hold that the 
king of France, our master, who owes the sceptre of the 
French only to his birth, is above any emperor whatever 
whom a free election alone has raised to the throne." a 

This profession of faith was quite reasonable. We must 
not then be surprised when we behold the Emperors at 
variance with the Popes and the Electors ; the latter made 
use of their right, and dismissed the Emperors, simply be- 
cause they were not satisfied with them. So late as the 
commencement of the fifteenth century, do we not still find 
the Emperor Wenceslaus legally deposed, as negligent, use- 
less, prodigal, and unworthy ? b And even without taking 
into account the right of election, which, as I have just 
observed, gives more hold over sovereignty, it had not yet 
been discussed whether the sovereign could be judged on 
any ground whatever. The same century beheld solemnly 
deposed, besides the Emperor Wenceslaus, two kings of 
England — Edward II. and Richard II. — and Pope John 
XXIII. , all four having been judged and condemned with 
all the judicial formalities ; and the Regent of Hungary 
was condemned to death. 

No sovereign power whatever can withdraw itself from a 
certain degree of resistance. This repressing power may 

a Credimus dominum nostrum regem Galliae, quern linea regii 
sanguinis provexit ad sceptra Francorum regenda, excellentiorera 
esse aliquo imperatore quern sola electio provehit voluntaria.— 
Maimbourg, ad ann. 1239. 

b Such epithets were weak for the murderer of St. J ohn Nepo- 
mucene ; but, if the Pope had possessed at that time the power to 
alarm Wenceslaus, this prince would have died upon his throne 
and with less guilt upon his conscience. 

c Voltaire has made this observation (Essai sur les Mceurs, &c. 
torn. ii. ch. lxvi. and lxxxv.) 



184 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



change its name, its attributes, its position, but it will 
always exist. 

But, should this resistance cause blood to be shed, the 
inconvenience thus attending it is like to that arising from 
inundations and conflagrations, which by no means prove 
that water and fire ought to be suppressed. 

Has it been remarked that the shock of those two powers, 
so inappropriately called the war of the Empire and the 
Priesthood, never passed the confines of Italy and Germany, 
as far at least as regarded its great results — the overthrow 
and the change of sovereignties ? Several princes, no doubt, 
were excommunicated in those days ; but what were in 
reality the consequences of such signal judgments ? The 
sovereign listened to reason, or appeared to do so ; he re- 
frained, for the moment, from a criminal war ; for form's 
sake he dismissed his mistress, who, nevertheless, sometimes 
regained her position. Friendly powers, influential and 
moderate personages, interposed ; and the Pope, in his turn, 
if he had been either too severe or too hasty, listened to the 
remonstrances of wisdom. What kings of France, of Spain, 
of England, of Sweden, of Denmark, were really deposed 
by the Popes ? It will be found that there were only me- 
naces and treaties ; and it would not be difficult to cite 
examples of Sovereign Pontiffs who were duped through 
their facility. The real struggle always took place in Italy 
and Germany. Why ? Because political circumstances did 
everything, whilst religion had no part in such transactions. 
All the dissensions, all the evils of those times originated 
in an ill-constituted sovereignty, and the ignorance of every 
principle. The elective prince always enjoys as a temporary 
possessor. He has no thought but for himself, because the 
state only belongs to him by the enjoyments of the moment. 
He is almost always a stranger to the true spirit of royalty, 
and the sacred character painted, and not engraved, on his 
forehead scarcely resists the least friction. Frederick II. 
caused it to be decided by his lawyers, presided over by the 
celebrated Barthole, that he (Frederick) had succeeded to 
all the rights of the Roman emperors, and that in this 
capacity he was master of the whole known world. Italy 



CHAP. X.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



185 



found not its account in this ; and the Pope, even though 
considered only as first elector, had surely some right to 
interfere with this extraordinary legal doctrine. It is not 
the question, besides, whether the Popes were men, or whe- 
ther they were ever mistaken ; but whether there has been, 
with all due allowances, on the throne which they have 
filled, more wisdom, more science, and more virtue than on 
any other. Now on this point not so much as a doubt can 
be permitted. 



CHAPTER X. 

EXERCISE OF THE POPE'S SUPREMACY OVER TEMPORAL 
SOVEREIGNS. 

Barbarism and interminable wars having effaced every 
principle, reduced the sovereignty of Europe to a state of 
fluctuation quite unparalleled, and made deserts everywhere, 
it was advantageous that a superior power should exercise 
a certain influence over this sovereignty. Now, as the 
Popes were superior by wisdom and knowledge, and as they 
had at their command, moreover, all the science of those 
times, the very force of things gave them an undisputed 
title to that superiority which at the time was indispensable. 
The true principle, that sovereignty comes from God, 
strengthened besides those ancient ideas, and there came to 
be formed an opinion, almost universal, which attributed 
to the Popes a certain jurisdiction over questions in which 
sovereigns were concerned. This opinion was quite sound, 
and certainly far better than all our sophistry. The Popes 
did not at all interfere so as to embarrass wise princes in 
the exercise of their functions ; still less did they disturb 
the order of the succession of sovereigns, so long as things 
were conducted according to the ordinary and known rules ; 
it was only when there was great abuse, great criminality, 
or much doubt, that the Sovereign Pontiff interposed. 
Now, how do we, who look upon our forefathers with pity, 
contrive to settle matters on such occasions ? By rebellion, 



186 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



"by civil wars, and all the evils they produce. In reality we 
have little to boast of. If the Pope had decided between 
Henry IV. and the League, he would have adjudged the 
kingdom of France to that great prince, enjoining he should 
go to mass; a he would have judged as Providence has judged, 
only the preliminaries would have been a little different. 

If France, to-day yielding to a Divine authority, had 
received its excellent kino; at the hands of the Sovereign 
Pontiff, can we suppose that it would not be at this mo- 
ment a little more satisfied with itself and with other 
nations ? b 

The good sense of the ages we call barbarous knew much 
more than our pride commonly believes. It is not astonish- 
ing that young nations, guided in a manner by instinct 
alone, should have adopted ideas so simple and so reason- 
able ; and it is highly important to observe how those same 
opinions, which influenced of old, barbarian nations, have 
in these later times carried the assent of three such men as 
Bellarmin, Hobbes, and Leibnitz. 

" And it matters little here whether the Pope held this 
primacy by Divine or by human right, provided it be clear 
that during several ages he exercised throughout the West, 
with universal consent and approbation, a power assuredly 
most extensive. There are, even among Protestants, several 
celebrated men who believed that this right might be left 
with the Pope, and that it was useful to the Church if 
certain abuses were retrenched. " d 

* A la charge par lui d'aller a la Messe. 

b Written soon after the restoration of the Bourbons by the 
allied powers. It must be acknowledged, that this was a some- 
what humbling event for the " peuple Francais, peuple de braves." 
Very different, surely, from the award of a high spiritual power, 
universally recognized as the common arbiter of the civilized 
world. 

c " The arguments of Bellarmin, who from the supposition that the 
Popes have jurisdiction in spiritual things, infers that they have, at 
least, an indirect jurisdiction in temporal things, have not appeared 
contemptible even to Hobbes. Indeed, it is certain," &c. — Leib- 
nitz, Op. torn. iv. part iii. p. 401, in 4to. Pensees de Leibnitz, in 
8vo. torn. ii. p. 406. 

d Pensees de Leibnitz, in 8vo. torn. ii. p. 401. 



CHAP. X.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



187 



The theory alone, therefore, would he immoveahle. But 
what can be said against facts, which are everything in 
questions of politics and government ? 

None doubted — sovereigns themselves did not doubt this 
power of the Popes ; and Leibnitz observes, with much 
truth and delicacy, as is his custom, that the Emperor 
Frederick, in saying to Pope Alexander III. " Not to you, 
but to Peter," confessed the power of the Pontiffs over 
kings, and only contested its abuse. a 

This observation may be generalized. Princes, struck 
by the anathema of the Pope, disputed only its justice, so 
that they were constantly ready to make use of it against 
their enemies, which they could not do without obviously 
acknowledging the legitimacy of the power. 

Voltaire, after having related in his own fashion the 
excommunication of Robert of France, remarks, " that the 
Emperor Otho III. was himself present at the council in 
which the sentence of excommunication was pronounced.'' b 
The Emperor, therefore, acknowledged the authority of the 
Pope ; and it is a very singular thing that modern critics 
will not see the manifest contradiction into which they fall, 
in observing, as they all do with admirable unanimity, 
" that what was most deplorable in those great judgments 
was the blindness of the princes, who disputed not their 
legitimacy, and who themselves often begged to have re- 
course to them/' 

But if the princes were agreed, the rest of mankind were 
so likewise, and there is no longer question but as to abuses, 
which exist everywhere. 

Philip Augustus, to whom the Pope had transferred the 
kingdom of England as a perpetual inheritance, . . . did 
not on that occasion proclaim " that it belonged not to the 
Pope to give crowns He himself had been excom- 
municated a few years previously, because he had desired to 
change his wife. He at that time pronounced the censures 
of Rome insolent and abusive He thought, quite 

a Leibnitz, Op. torn. iv. part iii. p. 401. 
b Voltaire, Essai, &c. torn. ii. ch. xxxix. 



188 



THE POPE. 



[bo6k ii. 



otherwise when he beheld himself the executor of a bull 
which bestowed upon him the throne of England/'* 

Thus was the authority of the Popes contested only by 
those against whom it was levelled. There was never, 
therefore, a more legitimate power, as there never was a 
power so little contested. 

The Diet of Forcheim having deposed, in 1077, the 
Emperor Henry IV., and appointed in his place Rhodolph, 
Duke of Suabia, the Pope convoked a council at Rome, to 
decide on the pretensions of the two rivals. These princes 
swore, through their ambassadors, to hold themselves bound 
by the decision of the legates, 5 and the election of Rhodolph 
was confirmed. Then appeared on the diadem of Rhodolph 
the celebrated words — 

" The Rock chose Peter, and Peter Rhodolph chose." 

Henry V., after his coronation as king of Italy, con- 
cludes, in 1110, a treaty with the Pope, by which the Em- 
peror abandons his pretensions to the right of investiture, 
"on condition that the Pope should cede to him the duchies, 
the counties, the marquisates, the lands, the administration 
of justice, the coining of money, and other privileges of 
which the bishops of Germany were in possession/' 

In 1109, Otho of Saxony having, contrary to the most 
sacred laws of justice, and in the face of his own most so- 
lemn engagements, attacked the lands of the Holy See, was 
excommunicated. The king of France and all Germany 
resolve to oppose him ; he is deposed in 1211 by the Elec- 
tors, who name in his place Frederick II. 

And this same Frederick II. having been deposed in 
1228, St. Louis causes it to be represented to the Pope, 
" that if the emperor had really deserved to be deposed, he 
ought only to have been so by a general council," that is, 
in reality, by the Pope better informed. d 

a Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, torn. ii. ch. i. 
b Maimbourg, ad ann. 1077. 

c " Petra (i. e. Jesus Christ) dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Ro- 
dolpho." 

d We find already, in the representation of this great prince, 



CHAP. X.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



189 



In 1245, Frederick II. is excommunicated and deposed, 
in the general council of Lyons. 

In 1335, the Emperor Louis of Bavaria, excommunicated 
by the Pope, sends ambassadors to Rome to solicit his ab- 
solution. They returned thither, for the same purpose, in 
1338, accompanied by the envoys of the king of France. 

In 1346, the Pope excommunicates anew Louis of Ba- 
varia, and, in concert with the king of France, names 
Charles of Moravia, &c. a 

Voltaire has written a long chapter to prove that the 
Popes bestowed all the kingdoms of Europe with the con- 
sent of the kings and the people. He quotes a king of 
Denmark saying to the Pope, in 1329, " The kingdom of 
Denmark, as you know, Most Holy Father, depends only 
on the Roman Church, to which it pays tribute, and not to 
the Empire. b " 

Voltaire continues these same details in the following 
chapter, and then, with astonishing depth of reasoning, 
writes in the margin, " Great proof that the Popes gave 
away kingdoms." 

For once I am quite of his opinion. The Popes gave 
away all kingdoms, therefore they gave away all king- 
doms. This is undoubtedly one of the finest reasonings 
of Voltaire. 

He also makes mention elsewhere of the powerful 
Charles V. asking from the Pope a dispensation to add the 
title of King of Naples to that of Emperor. d 

the spirit of opposition which was developed in France earlier 
than elsewhere. Philip the Fair appealed in like manner, from 
a decree of Boniface VIII. to a general council ; but in their 
appeals, even, those princes acknowledged that the Universal 
Church, as Leibnitz says (ubi supra), had received some authority 
over their persons, authority which was then, they alleged, abused in 
their regard. 

a All these facts are universally known. They may be verified 
at the dates to which they belong, in the well-executed work of 
Maimbourg, Histoire de la Decadence de l'Empire, &c, in Mura- 
tori's Annals of Italy, and generally in all the historical works 
relating to the time in question. 

b Volt. Essai sur les Mceurs, &c. torn. iii. ch. lxiii. 

c Ibid. ch. lxiv. d Ibid. ch. cxxiii. 



190 THE POPE. [BOOK IT. 

The divine origin of sovereignty, and the individual 
legitimacy conferred and declared by the Vicar of Jesus 
Christ, were ideas so deeply rooted in all minds, that Livo, 
king of Lesser Armenia, sent to do homage to the Emperor 
and the Pope in 1242 ; and he was crowned at Mayence 
by the archbishop of that city. a 

At the commencement of that same century, Joannice, 
king of the Bulgarians, submits to the Roman Church, and 
sends ambassadors to Innocent III. to profess to him filial 
obedience, and ask of him the royal crown, as Ms predeces- 
sors had of old received it from the Holy See. b 

In 1275, Demetrius, driven from the throne of Russia, 
appealed to the Pope as to the judge of all Christians. 

And, to conclude with something still more striking, let- 
it be remembered, that, so late as in the sixteenth century, 
Henry VII., king of England, although tolerably well 
aware of his rights, requested, nevertheless, the confirma- 
tion of his title of Pope Innocent VII., who granted it to 
him by a bull, which Bacon has quoted. d 

There is nothing so piquant as to find the Popes justified 
by their accusers, who have no suspicion of what they have 
done. Listen again to Voltaire : " Every prince/' says 
he, " who wished to usurp or recover a domain, applied 

to the Pope, as to his master No new prince dared 

to style himself sovereign, and could not be recognized as 
such by the other princes, without the permission of the 
Pope ; and the ground of the whole history of the middle 
ages is always that the Popes believe themselves lords 
paramount of all the states, without a single excep- 
tion." 6 

I desire no more ; the legitimacy of the power in question 
is demonstrated. The author of " The Letters on History," 
more zealous, perhaps, against the Popes than Voltaire even, 
all whose hatred was, so to speak, superficial, found himself 

a Maimbourg, Histoire de la Decadence, &c. an 1242. 

b Id. Hist, du Schisme des Grecs, torn. ii. liv. iv. an 1201. 

c Volt. Ann. de 1'Empire, torn. i. p. 178. 

d Bacon, Hist, of Henry VII. p. 29 of the French translation. 

e Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, torn. iii. ch. lxiv. 



CHAP. X.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



191 



driven to the same result, that of completely justifying the 
Popes, whilst he thought he was accusing them. 

" Unfortunately/' says he, "almost all the sovereigns them- 
selves, by an inconceivable blindness, laboured to establish 
in public opinion an authority which had not, and which 
could not have, any strength, but by that opinion. When 
it attacked one of their rivals and enemies, not only did 
they approve it ; they sometimes even promoted excommu- 
nication ; and in charging themselves with the execution of 
the sentence which stripped a sovereign of his states, they 
subjected their own to this usurped jurisdiction."* 

He cites, moreover, a signal instance of the exercise of 
this public right, and in attacking it, he completes its jus- 
tification. " It appeared/' says he, " reserved for that fatal 
league (of Cambrai) to a concentrate in itself every vice. 
The right of excommunication in things temporal was 
there recognized by two sovereigns, and it was stipulated 
that Julius should issue an interdict against Venice, if 
it did not within forty days yield up its usurpations/' 6 

" Behold here/' Montesquieu would say, " the spungb 
which must be applied to all the objections that are urged 
against the ancient excommunications." How blind is not 
prejudice, even in the most penetrating minds ! This is 
the first time, perhaps, that the universality of a custom is 
brought as an argument against its legitimacy. And what 
is there men can rely upon for certain, if custom, especially 
when never contradicted, is not held to be the parent of 
legitimacy ? It is the worst of all sophistry to transfer a 
modern system to bygone times, and to judge by this rule 
the affairs and the men of those more or less remote periods. 
With such a principle, the universe itself would be upset, 
for there is no established institution that might not be 
overthrown by the same means, judging it by an abstract 
theory. Once it is found that both people and kings are 
agreed as to the authority of the Popes, all modern reason- 
ings fall to the ground, and the more so that the most certain 
theory comes to the support of ancient usages. 

a Lettres sur l'Histoire, torn. ii. lettre xli. p. 413, in 8vo. 
b Ibid. torn. iii. lettre lxii. p. 233. 



192 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



In considering, philosophically, the power formerly ex- 
ercised by the Popes, the inquiry may possibly be made, 
why it was so late in being developed throughout the 
world ? There are two answers to this question. 

In the first place, the pontifical power, by reason of its 
character and importance, was, more than any other, sub- 
ject to the universal law of development. Now, if we 
reflect that it was destined to last as long as religion 
itself, we shall not find that its maturity was unduly re- 
tarded. Plants are a natural resemblance of legitimate 
powers. Consider the tree ; the time of its growth is 
always in proportion to its strength and the entire period 
of its duration. Every power, at once constituted in all 
the fulness of its vigour and its attributes, is, by such con- 
stitution, false, ephemeral, and ridiculous. As well might 
we imagine a man, adult-born. 

In the second place, it was necessary that the bursting 
forth, if it may be so expressed, of the pontifical power 
should be coeval with the youth of European sovereignties, 
which it was destined to christianize. 

To recapitulate. No sovereignty is, in the full sense 
of the term, unlimited, nor is it possible even that any 
sovereignty should be so. At all times, and in every 
place, it has been by some means restrained. 21 The most 
natural and the least dangerous mode of restraining it, 
especially in new and ferocious nations, was, undoubtedly, 
a certain intervention of the spiritual power. The hypo- 

a Which ought to be understood according to the explanation 
I have already given (liv. ii. ch. iii.) ; that there is no sovereignty 
which, for the happiness of men, and particularly for its own, 
is not in some way limited ; but that within the circle of its 
limits, fixed as God may please, it is always and everywhere 
absolute, and held to be infallible ; and when I speak of the 
legitimate exercise of sovereignty, I neither understand nor ex- 
press its just exercise, which would occasion a dangerous amphi- 
bology, unless that by this last word should be understood that 
everything it does within its circle is just, or held to be so ; which 
it really must be. This is a supreme tribunal, so long as it does 
not go beyond what properly appertains to it, always just ; for it 
is the same thing, in practice, to be infallible, or to err without 
appeal. 



CHAP. XI.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



193 



thesis of all Christian sovereignties united by religious fra- 
ternity, and forming, as it were, an universal republic, under 
the measured supremacy of the supreme spiritual power, 
was by no means calculated to shock men's ideas, and 
might even have presented itself to the mind as an in- 
stitution superior to the Amphictyonic council. I cannot 
see that modem times have imagined anything better, or 
even anything so good. Who knows what would have 
happened, if the theocracy, human policy, and science, had 
remained in a state of undisturbed equilibrium, as always 
happens when elements are left to themselves, and time is 
allowed to do its work ? In this order of things, the most 
terrible calamities the world has experienced, the wars of 
religion, the French Revolution, &c, would not have been 
possible ; and with such development as the pontifical power 
has been able to attain, and notwithstanding the fearful 
alloy of error, vice, and passion which have spread desola- 
tion among the human race at certain melancholy epochs, 
it has not the less rendered the most important services to 
humanity. 

The host of writers who have not perceived these truths 
in history no doubt understood how to write, — they have 
shown it only too well, but it is equally certain they never 
knew how to read. 



CHAPTER XL 

HYPOTHETICAL APPLICATION OF THE PRECEDING PRINCIPLES. 

The most humble and most respectful remonstrances of the 
States General of the Kingdom of** *, assembled at * * *, 
to our Holy Father Pope Pius VII. 

" Most Holy Father, 

" Plunged in the deepest affliction and the most cruel 
anxiety that faithful subjects can experience, and obliged 
to choose between the absolute loss of a nation and the 
last measures of severity against an august head, the States 

o 



194 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



General cannot imagine any better course than to throw 
themselves on the paternal care of your Holiness, and 
invoke your supreme justice to save, if it can yet be saved, 
an empire that has been made desolate. 

" The sovereign who governs us, most Holy Father, 
reigns only for our ruin. We contest not his virtues, but 
they are of no avail to us, and his errors are such, that if 
your Holiness does not extend to us your protection, there 
is no longer any hope of safety. 

<c From a species of mental excitement, quite unequalled, 
this prince imagines that we are living in the sixteenth 
century, and that he himself is Gustavus Adolphus. Your 
Holiness may easily have made known to you the acts of 
the Germanic Diet ; you will there see that our sovereign, 
in his capacity of member of that body, has caused to be 
remitted to the Directory several notes, which evidently 
proceed from the two suppositions we have just indicated, 
and by the consequences of which we are crushed. Ani- 
mated by an unfortunate military enthusiasm, quite apart 
from talent, he desires to make war ; he will not have it 
carried on in his name, and he knows not how to carry it 
on himself. He compromises his troops, disgraces them, 
and then avenges on his officers the reverses of which he 
himself is the author. Against all the rules of the most 
ordinary prudence, he persists in maintaining war, in spite 
of his nation, against two colossal powers, one of which 
alone would suffice to annihilate us ten times over. Ad- 
dicted to the chimeras of illuminism, he studies politics in 
the Apocalypse ; and he is come to believe that he is desig- 
nated in this book as the extraordinary personage destined 
to overthrow the giant who is now shaking all the thrones 
of Europe. The name which distinguishes him among 
kings, is less nattering to his ear than that which he 
accepted in affiliating himself to the secret societies of the 
day ; this last name is that which he affixes to his acts, 
and the arms of his august family have given way to the 
burlesque escutcheon of the Brethren. As unreasonable in 
the management of his domestic affairs as in his public 
counsels, he is now repudiating an irreproachable consort, 



OHAP. XI.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



195 



for reasons which our deputies have instructions to explain 
verbally to your Holiness. If you do not put a stop to this 
project by a salutary decree, we doubt not but some un- 
suitable and capricious choice will ere long occur to justify 
still more our having recourse to your Holiness. Finally, 
most Holy Father, there is the most incontrovertible evi- 
dence to convince you that the nation, being irrevocably 
alienated from the dynasty which rules over us, this family, 
proscribed by general opinion, ought to be removed, for the 
sake of public safety, which takes precedence of every- 
thing. 

" Nevertheless, most Holy Father, God forbid that we 
should think of appealing to our own judgment, and of 
deciding for ourselves on this great occasion ! We know 
that kings have no temporal judges, particularly among 
their own subjects, and that royal majesty holds only of 
God. To you, therefore, most Holy Father, as to the 
representative on earth of the Son of God, we address our 
petition, praying that you would deign to relieve us from 
the oath of fidelity which binds us to the royal family that 
now governs our country, and transfer to another family 
rights, the actual possessor of which can only enjoy for his 
own misery and for ours." 

What would be the results of this recourse to the high 
spiritual power ? The Pope would promise in the first 
place to take the matter into his most serious considera- 
tion, and to weigh the grievances of the nation in the 
balance of the most scrupulous justice ; this would have 
sufficed at once to calm every mind ; for man is so consti- 
tuted, that whilst the denial of justice irritates him, the 
impossibility of obtaining it drives him to despair. The 
moment he can rely upon being heard by a legitimate tri- 
bunal, he becomes tranquil. 

The Pope would then send to the country in question a 
man enjoying his fullest confidence, and qualified, more- 
over, to treat such great interests. This envoy would in- 
terpose between the people and their sovereign. He would 
point out to the former the falsity or the exaggeration of 
their complaints, the incontestable merits of the prince, 

o 2 



196 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



and the means of avoiding an immense political scandal ; 
to the latter he would show the dangers of inflexibility, the 
necessity of treating certain prejudices with respect, and, 
above all, the inutility of appeals to right and justice when 
once blind force is let loose — in a word, he would forget 
nothing in order to prevent the parties from proceeding to 
extremities. 

But let us take things at the worst, and suppose that 
the Sovereign Pontiff has thought it his duty to absolve the 
subjects from their oath of allegiance ; thus, at least, will 
all violent measures be averted. In sacrificing the king he 
will save royalty ; he will not neglect any of the personal 
alleviations which the circumstances of the case permit, but 
especially, and this perhaps merits some slight attention, 
he would thunder against the project of deposing a whole 
dynasty, even on account of the crimes, and a fortiori on 
account of the faults, of one man. He would instruct the 
people "that the family reigns — that the case which has 
just occurred is like that of an ordinary succession laid 
open by death or illness, and he would conclude by saying 
anathema to every man who should be bold enough to call 
in question the rights of the reigning house/' 

Thus would the Pope have acted, supposing the enlight- 
enment of our time joined to the public law of the twelfth 
century. 

Does any one believe that it was not possible to do 

worse ? 

How blind we are for the most part ! And if I may be 
allowed to say so, how much have not princes particularly 
been deceived by appearances ? We are vaguely told of 
the excesses of Gregory VII. and the superiority of modern 
times ; but what right have the days of rebellion to laugh 
at those of dispensations ? The Pope no longer absolves 
from the oath of fidelity, but the people absolve themselves, 
— they rebel, they depose their princes, they poniard them, 
they send them to the scaffold. They do worse still. Yes, 
I retract not — they do worse ; they say to them, "You are 
no longer wanted, — begone ! " They proclaim loudly the 
original sovereignty of the people, and their inherent right 



CHAP. XII. 1 PONTIFICAL POWER. 



197 



to do themselves justice. A rage for constitutions, if I may 
speak so strongly, has taken possession of all minds, and 
none can tell what it will yet produce. Deprived of a com- 
mon centre, they differ in the most alarming manner, agree- 
ing only on one point — that of limiting sovereignties. 
What, then, have sovereigns gained by that so much boasted 
enlightenment which is all directed against themselves ? I 
prefer the Pope. 

It remains for us to inquire whether the pretension to 
power we are examining " has inundated Europe with 
blood and fanaticism/' 



CHAPTER XII. 

ON THE WARS ALLEGED TO HAVE ARISEN FROM THE SHOCK 
OF THE TWO POWERS. 

The commencement of these wars dates from the year 
1076. At that time the Emperor Henry IV., summoned 
to Rome on account of simony, sent ambassadors, whom the 
Pope refused to receive. The emperor, highly indignant, 
assembles a council at Worms, and causes the Pope to be 
deposed ; the latter, in his turn (it was the celebrated 
Gregory VII.), deposes the emperor, and looses his subjects 
from their oath of fidelity. a An<J, notwithstanding the 
submission of Henry, Gregory, who had confined himself 
entirely to absolving from the oath of allegiance, gives 
commission to the princes of Germany to elect another 
emperor, if they are not satisfied with Henry. The princes 
call to the throne Rhodolph of Suabia, and from this pro- 
ceeding arises a war between the two competitors. Soon 
after, Gregory requires the electors to hold another assem- 
bly, in order to put an end to their differences, and he ex- 
communicates all who should throw any obstacle in the way 
of this assembly. 

The partisans of Henry deposed the Pope anew at the 

a Muratori, Ann. d' Italia, torn. iv. 4to. p. 246 ; and ibid. p. 245. 



198 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



Council of Brescia, in 1080. a But Rhodolph haying been 
defeated and slain the same year, hostilities came to an 
end. 

If it be inquired who had constituted the electors, Vol- 
taire is at hand to reply, " that the electors had instituted 
themselves, and that it is in this way all orders are esta- 
blished, laws and time accomplishing the rest m " b and he adds, 
with equally good reason, that the princes who possessed 
the right of electing the emperor appear to have enjoyed 
also that of deposing him. c 

There can be no doubt of the truth of this proposition. 
The modern electors, merely titulars without authority, 
who name for the sake of form a prince in reality heredi- 
tary, must not be confounded with the ancient electors, 
truly electors in the full sense of the term, who undoubtedly 
possessed the right to demand of their creature an account 
of his political conduct. How, besides, can we imagine a 
German elective prince ruling over Italy without being 
elected by Italy ? For my part, I cannot imagine anything 
so monstrous. And, if the force of circumstances had na- 
turally concentrated in the person of the Pope, both as first 
prince of Italy and chief of the Catholic Church, what 
could there have been more fitting than such a state of 
things ? The Pope, besides, in all the affairs we have con- 
sidered, interfered not with the public right of the empire ; 
he gave orders to the electors to deliberate and elect, he 
instructed them to adopt measures calculated to put an end 
to all differences. This is all he ought to have done. The 
words make and unmake emperors are easily pronounced. 
But there is nothing less correct, the excommunicated 
prince having always had it in his power to be reconciled. 
So that, if he obstinately persisted, the unmaking was his 
own work ; and if by any chance the Pope had acted un- 
justly, the only result was that in this case he had made 

a We often hear it asked if the Popes had a right to depose the 
emperors ; but whether the emperors had a right to depose the Popes 
is a trifling question, about which little trouble is taken. 

b Volt. Essai sur les Moeurs, &c. torn. iv. chap. cxcv. 

c Ibid. torn. iii. ch. xlv. 



CHAP. XII.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



199 



an unjust use of a just authority, an evil to which all 
human authority is necessarily liable. In the event of the 
electors not being able to agree, and of their committing 
the signal folly of naming two emperors, they at the same 
moment inflicted war upon themselves ; and, war once de- 
clared, what was it still possible for the Popes to do ? As 
coronation was considered indispensable, and as it was 
asked either by the two competitors or by the newly elected 
emperor, neutrality was out of the question. It was the 
duty of the Popes, therefore, to declare for the party on 
whose side they saw justice. At the period we are treating 
of, a great number of princes and bishops (who were also 
princes), as well of Germany as of Italy, declared against 
Henry, in order that they might get rid at length of a king 
born only to render Ms people miserable? 

In the year 1078, the Pope sent legates into Germany, 
to inquire who were in the right, and two years later he 
sent again, to put an end, if it were possible, to the war ; 
but there were no means of calming the tempest, and three 
sanguinary battles marked that year, so fraught with mis- 
fortune to Germany. 

It is a strange abuse of terms to call this struggle a war 
between the Priesthood and the Empire. It was a schism 
in the Empire — a war between two rival princes, one of 
whom was favoured with the approval and sometimes with 
the forced concurrence of the Sovereign Pontiff. A war is 
always understood to be waged between two principal parties 

a Passarono a liberar se stessi da un principe nato solamente 
per rendere infelici i suoi sudditi. — Muratori, ibid. p. 248. All 
history informs us what Henry was as a prince ; his son and his 
wife have told us what he was at home. What a scene was that 
of the wretched Praxedes dragged from her prison by the care of 
the wise Matilda, and driven by despair to confess, in the midst 
of a council, abominable deeds ! Never does Providence permit 
the genius of evil to let loose one of those ferocious animals with- 
out opposing to him the invincible genius of some great man ; and 
such was Gregory VII. The writers of our time hold a different 
opinion ; they cease not to tell us of the impetuous, the pitiless 
Gregory. Henry, on the contrary, enjoys all their favour ; he is 
always the unfortunate Henry. They have no mercy but for 
crime. 



200 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



pursuing exclusively the same object. All who may be 
hurried along with the whirlwind are not responsible for any- 
thing. Whoever thought of reproaching Holland or Por- 
tugal with the War of Succession ? 

The quarrels of Frederick with Pope Adrian IV. are well 
known. After the death of this excellent pontiff a in 11 5 9, 
the emperor caused an anti-pope to be named, and lent all 
his power to support him, with an obstinacy which inflicted 
cruel wounds upon the Church. He even assumed the right 
to hold a council, and to summon the Pope to Pavia, in 
order to dispose of him as he should think proper, and dis- 
pensing with the formality of using complimentary language, 
he merely addressed the Pontiff in his letter by his family 
name of Holland. The latter took care not to obey an in- 
vitation equally dangerous and indecent. On his refusal, 
some bishops, led astray, paid, or coerced by the emperor, 
ventured to acknowledge Octavian (or Victor) as legitimate / 
Pope, and to depose Alexander III., having first excom- 
municated him. Then it was that the Pope himself, driven 
to the last extremities, excommunicated the emperor, and 
declared his subjects loosed from their oath of fidelity. b This 
schism lasted seventeen years, till the time of Frederick's 
absolution, which was accorded at the celebrated interview 
of Venice in 1177. 

It is well known that the Pope had much to suffer in the 
course of this long interval, both from the violence of Fre- 
derick and from the machinations of the anti-pope. The 

a Lascio dopo di se gran lode di pieta, di prudenza e di zelo, 
molte opere della sua pia e principessa liberalita. — Muratori, Ann. 
d' Italia, torn. iv. p. 538, ann. 1159. 

b Such is the truth. Would you now learn what they ventured 
to write in France ? Open the chronological tables of the Abbe 
Lenglet-Dufresnoy, you will find at the date 1159, " The Pope 
(Adrian IV.) not having been able to induce the Milanese to re- 
volt against the emperor, excommunicated that prince." 

And the emperor was excommunicated the following year, 
1160, at the mass of Holy Thursday, by the successor of 
Adrian IV., the latter having died the 1st September, 1159 ; 
and we have seen why Frederick was excommunicated, but be- 
hold what is related, and behold what is unfortunately believed. 



CHAP. XII.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



201 



emperor carried his resentment so far as to desire to have 
the ambassadors of the Pope hanged at Crema, whither 
they had gone to wait upon him. There is no telling what 
would have actually happened but for the intervention of 
the two princes, Guelf and Henry de Leon. Meanwhile, 
Italy was on fire — the prey of factions. Every town had 
become a focus of opposition against the insatiable ambition 
of the emperors. No doubt their great efforts were not 
sufficiently disinterested to deserve success ; but who would 
not be indignant at the intolerable ignorance which pre- 
sumes to say they had rebelled ? Who would not deplore 
the fate of Milan ? What it is of importance to observe 
here is, that the Popes were not the cause of those disas- 
trous wars ; that they were, on the contrary, almost always 
their victims ; as for instance, on this occasion, supposing it 
had been their desire to wage war, it was not in their power 
to do so, since, independently of the immense inferiority of 
their forces, their lands were almost always seized upon, and 
they never enjoyed undisturbed possession at home, not 
even at Rome, where the republican spirit was as strong as 
anywhere else, but without equally plausible grounds on 
which it could claim to be excused. Alexander III., of 
whom there is question here, finding nowhere in Italy a 
secure asylum, was obliged at last to retire into France, the 
ordinary refuge of persecuted Popes. a He had resisted the 
emperor, and acted justly, according to his conscience. He 
had not enkindled the war ; he had not carried it on ; he 
could not have carried it on ; he was its victim. 5 Behold, 

a Murat. ibid. torn. vi. p. 549, aim. 1661. It is remarkable that 
during the eclipse which the glory of France has just experienced, 
the oppressors of the nation made it act a part precisely the re- 
verse of what it had been accustomed to. They went in search 
of the Pontiff in order to cut him off. We may be allowed to 
believe that the chastisement to which France is condemned at 
present is the penalty of the crime which was committed in her 
name. Never will she resume her place, without resuming also 
her functions. (The above note was written in August, 1817.) 
In reading it to-day (December, 1849), who does not think of the 
restoration of the Pope's government by a French army ? 

b In the chronology I recently quoted, we read at the date 



202 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



then, yet another period wholly withdrawn from " that san- 
guinary struggle between the Priesthood and the Empire." 

In the year 1198, there was a new schism in the empire. 
The electors being divided, one party elected Philip of 
Suabia, and the other Otho of Saxony. This led to a 
ten years' war. Meanwhile, Innocent III., who had de- 
clared for Otho, availed himself of the state of matters to 
repossess himself of Romagna, the duchy of Spoletto, and 
the patrimony of the Countess Matilda, which the emperors 
had unjustly given in fief to some petty princes. In all 
this there was not a shadow of spirituality or of ecclesiasti- 
cal power. The Pope acted like a good prince, according 
to the rules of policy as generally understood. Absolutely 
obliged to come to a decision, was it his duty to protect 
the posterity of Barberossa against the no less well-founded 
pretensions of a prince belonging to a house which had de- 
served well of the Holy See, and suffered much in its 
cause ? Was he bound to let himself be despoiled without 
resistance, to avoid a little noise ? In truth, these unfor- 
tunate pontiffs are required to be singularly apathetic ! 

In 1210, Otho IV., in contempt of every law of prudence, 
and contrary to his oaths, usurped the territories of the 
Pope and those of the king of Sicily, the ally and vassal of 
the Holy See. Pope Innocent III. excommunicated him, 
and deprived him of the empire. Frederick was elected. 
Then occurred what always occurred, — princes and people 
were divided. Otho continued to carry on against Fre- 
derick, emperor, the war commenced against this same 
Frederick as king of Sicily. There was no change ; they 
fought, but all the blame lay with Otho, whose injustice 
and ingratitude cannot be excused. This he himself ac_ 

1167 : " The Emperor Frederick defeats more than 12,000 Ro- 
mans, and takes possession of Rome ; Pope Alexander is obliged 
to take to flight." Who would not think that the Pope was 
waging war upon the emperor, whilst in reality the Romans were 
carrying it on in opposition to the wishes of the Pope, who could 
not hinder it ? " Ancorche si opponesse a tal risoluzione il pru- 
dentissimo Papa Alessandro III. — Murat. ad Ann. torn. iv. 
p. 575. For three centuries back, history appears to be nothing 
better than a great conspiracy against truth. 



CHAP. XII.] PONTIFICAL POWER. 



203 



knowledged, when, at the point of death, in 1218, he asked 
and obtained absolution with the best feelings of piety and 
repentance. 

His successor, Frederick II., had engaged by oath, and 
under pain of excommunication, to carry his arms into 
Palestine. 21 But, instead of fulfilling his engagement, he 
thought only of increasing his treasure, even at the expense 
of the Church, in order to oppress the Lombards. He was 
at length excommunicated in 1227 and 1228. Frederick 
had gone at last to the Holy Land, and in the meantime 
the Pope took possession of a part of Apulia, b but in a 
short time the emperor reappeared, and repossessed himself 
of all that had been taken from him. Gregory IX., who had, 
with good reason, assigned to the crusades the first rank 
among political and religious affairs, and who was exceed- 
ingly displeased with the emperor on account of the truce 
he had concluded with the sultan, excommunicated this 
prince anew. The latter was reconciled in 1230, but never- 
theless continued the war, and carried it on with unheard of 
cruelty. 

He acted with such barbarity towards priests and churches, 
that the Pope once more excommunicated him. It would 
be superfluous to call to mind here the accusation of im- 
piety, and the famous book of " the three impostors 
these are matters of general notoriety. Gregory IX., I am 
aware, has been accused of giving way to anger, and of 
having been too precipitate in his conduct towards Fre- 
derick. Muratori has spoken in one way, and Rome in 
another ; but this discussion, which would require much 
time and pains, is foreign to a work in which there is, by 
no means, question of inquiring whether the Popes were 
ever to blame. Let it be supposed, if they will, that 

a Murat. ibid. torn. vii. p. 175, ann. 1223. 

b But only to confer it on John de Brienne, father-in-law of 
this same Frederick, — a fact that ought to be remarked. In 
general, the spirit of usurpation was always foreign to the Popes ; 
this has not been sufficiently observed. 

c He was seen, for instance, rending in four the heads of pri- 
soners of war, or burning them on the forehead with an iron cut 
in the form of a cross. 



204 



THE POPE 



[BOOK II. 



Gregory IX. showed himself too inflexible ; what shall we 
say of Innocent, who, before his accession to the Holy See, 
had been the friend of Frederick, and who omitted nothing 
that was calculated to re-establish peace ? He was not 
more fortunate than Gregory, and he ended by solemnly 
deposing the emperor in the general council of Lyons, in 
1245. a 

The new schism in the empire which took place in 1257, 
was alien to the Pope, and produced no event in relation to 
the Holy See. The same must be said of the deposition of 
Adolphus of Nassau in 1298, and of his struggle with 
Albert of Austria. 

In 1314, the electors fall anew into the enormous fault 
of being divided ; and in consequence there arises imme- 
diately a war of eight years between Louis of Bavaria and 
Frederick of Austria, a war in like manner foreign to the 
Holy See. 

At this period the Popes had disappeared from that un- 
fortunate Italy where the emperors had not shown them- 
selves for sixty years, and which the two factions inun- 
dated with blood throughout its length and breadth, 
without minding much either the interests of the Popes 
or those of the emperors} 

The war between Louis and Frederick produced the two 
sanguinary battles of Eslingen in 1315, and Muldorff in 
1322. 

Pope John XXII. had broken the vicars of the empire 
in 1317, and summoned the two competitors to discuss 
their rights. If they had obeyed, the battle of Muldorff 
at least would have been averted. Besides, if the preten- 
sions of the Popes were exaggerated, those of the emperors 
were not less so. We find Louis of Bavaria, in an ordi- 

a Several writers have remarked that this celebrated excom- 
munication was pronounced in presence of the council, but with- 
out its approbation. This difference is scarcely perceptible, as the 
council did not protest ; and if it did not protest, it was because it 
believed there was question of a point of public law, which did 
not even require to be discussed. This is not sufficiently noticed. 

b Maimbourg, Hist, de la Decadence, &c. an 1308. 



CHAP. XII.] 



PONTIFICAL POWER. 



205 



nance of 23rd April, 1328, treating the Pope absolutely like 
an imperial subject. He enjoined him residence, forbade him 
to remove from Rome, for more than three months, and more 
than two days' journey, without the permission of the Roman 
clergy and people. If the Pope resisted after being thrice 
summoned, he ceased to be Pope, ipso facto. 

Louis concluded by condemning to death John XXII. a 

Such is the state to which the emperors would have re- 
duced the Popes ! and in this abject condition would the 
sovereign pontiffs have been to-day if their imperial majes- 
ties had obtained the mastery. 

It is well known that Louis of Bavaria made several 
attempts to be reconciled, and it appears even that the 
Pope would have yielded to his wish, but for the formal 
opposition of the kings of France, Naples, Bohemia, and 
Poland. b The conduct of the emperor Louis was, however, so 
intolerable, that he was again excommunicated in 1346. 
His tyranny was carried to such an extravagant height in 
Italy, that he proposed the sale of the states and towns of 
that country to those who should offer the highest price. 

The celebrated epoch of 1349 put an end to all these 
quarrels. Charles IV. yielded in Germany and in Italy. 
He was then laughed at, because ..the minds of men were 
accustomed to exaggeration. Nevertheless, he reigned 

CO 1 O 

worthily in Germany, and Europe became indebted to 
him for the golden bull which fixed the public law of the 
empire. Since that time there has been no change, which 

* Maimbourg, Hist, de la Decad. &c. an 1328. 

b We must never lose sight of the great and incontestable his- 
torical truth, that all the sovereigns considered the Pope their supe- 
rior, even temporally, but especially did they hold him to be the 
liege lord of the elective emperors. The Popes, according to uni- 
versal opinion, were understood to give the empire in crowning 
the emperor. His imperial majesty received from them the right 
to name his successor, and from him (the emperor) the German 
electors received the privilege of naming a king of the Teutons, 
who was thus destined to the imperial crown. To him also the 
emperor elect made oath, &c. The pretensions of the Popes, 
therefore, can only appear strange to those who absolutely refuse 
to go back in thought to those remote periods. 

c Maimb. Hist, de la Decad. &c. aa. 1328 et 1329. 



206 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



shows that he acted on perfectly sufficient grounds, and 
that what he carried into effect was what Providence had 
appointed. 

A rapid glance at the famous quarrel has sufficed to 
show what ought to be thought of those four centuries of 
blood and fanaticism. But to give to the picture the re- 
quisite degree of gloom, and especially to throw all the 
odium on the Pope, recourse is had to certain innocent 
artifices, which it may prove useful to bring together. 

The commencement of the great quarrel cannot be fixed 
at an earlier period than the year 1076, and its conclusion 
cannot be brought lower down than the time of the golden 
bull, in 1349. In all, 273 years. But as round numbers 
are more agreeable, it is as well to say four centuries, or at 
any rate, about four centuries. 

And as war was waged in Germany and Italy during 
this period, it must be understood that it was waged during 
the whole of this period. 

And as there was war in Germany and Italy, and as 
those two states are a considerable part of Europe, it must 
be understood also that war continued to rage throughout 
all Europe. This is only a trifling synecdoche, which is not 
open to the slightest objection. 

And, as the difference about investitures and excommu- 
nications made much noise in the course of those four cen- 
turies, and were calculated to occasion some military move- 
ments, it is proved, moreover, that all the wars of Europe 
during that period had no other cause, and that the Popes 
were always in the fault. 

So that the Popes, for about four centuries, inundated 
Europe with blood and fanaticism* 

So powerful is the hold of habit and prejudice on the 
human mind, that writers otherwise distinguished by wis- 
dom, are pretty liable, in treating this point of history, to af- 
firm and deny the same thing, without observing their error. 

a " During four or five centuries." — Lettres sur l'Hist. Paris, 
Nyon, 1803, torn. ii. lett. xxviii. p. 220, note. 

" During about four centuries." — Ibid. Lettre xli. p. 406. I 
decide for the half of four centuries. 



CHAP. XII.] REFUTATION OF CALUMNIES. 207 

Maimbourg, for instance, who has been too much depre- 
ciated, and who generally appears tolerably wise and im- 
partial, in his " History of the Decline of the Empire, 
&c." says, in speaking of Gregory VII., " If he had been 
able to fall upon making some good concordat with the 
emperor, like those which have since been most advan- 
tageously entered into, he would have spared the blood of 
so many millions of men who perished in the quarrel of in- 
vestitures: " a 

Nothing could equal the folly of this passage. Assuredly 
it is easy to say in the seventeenth century how a concordat 
should have been made in the eleventh, with princes who 
had neither moderation, nor faith, nor humanity. 

And what shall I say of those so many millions of men 
sacrificed to the quarrel of investitures, which lasted only 
fifty years, and on account of which I do not believe that a 
single drop of blood was shed ? b 

But if the national prejudices of this author (Maim- 
bourg) happen to slumber for a moment, truth comes out, 
and he tells us, without ambiguity, in the same work : 

" It must not be thought that the two factions waged 
war on account of religion. ... It was nothing else 
than hatred and ambition that excited them against one 
another, for their mutual destruction." c 

Such readers as have perused only the blue books, can- 
not divest themselves of the prejudice that the wars of 
the period in question were caused by the excommunica- 
tions, and that, but for those excommunications, there 
would have been no fighting. There never was a more 
egregious error. As I have already stated, there was war 
before this quarrel, there was war after it. Peace is not 

a Maimbourg, an 1085. 

b The dispute commenced with Henry, on account of simony ; 
the emperor wishing to render the ecclesiastical benefices venal, 
and to make the Church a fief holding of his crown, and Gre- 
gory VII. desiring the contrary. In regard to investitures, we 
behold, on the one side, violence, and on the other, pastoral re- 
sistance more or less unfortunate. Never was blood spilled in 
this cause. 

c Maimbourg, Hist, de la Decadence, an 1317. 



208 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



possible wherever sovereignty is not fixed. Now, it was 
not so at that time. Nowhere did it last sufficiently long 
to gain respect. The Empire, even, being elective, did 
not inspire that kind of reverence which belongs only to 
hereditary power. Changes, usurpations, extravagant de- 
sires, vast projects, were necessarily the fashion, and such 
ideas really prevailed in all minds. The vile and abomi- 
nable policy of Machiavel is infected with this spirit of 
robbery ; it is the policy of cut-throats, which, so late as 
the fifteenth century, still obtained with a number of 
great men. It has scarcely more than one problem : 
" How shall assassins outwit one another ? " There was 
not at that time in Germany and Italy a single sovereign 
who felt secure in the possession of his own states, and 
who did not covet those of his neighbour. To com- 
plete the evil, sovereignties, divided into portions, were 
given up piecemeal to such princes as were able to pur- 
chase them. There was not a castle that did not shelter 
a brigand or the son of a brigand. Hatred was in every 
heart ; and the melancholy habit of great crimes had con- 
verted all Italy into a scene of horrors. Two great fac- 
tions, which by no means owed their existence to the 
Popes, chiefly divided those beautiful countries. " The 
Guelfs, who would not acknowledge the Empire, always 
espoused the cause , of the Popes against the emperors/' a 
The Popes were, therefore, necessarily Guelfs, and the 
Guelfs were necessarily enemies of the anti-popes, whom 
the emperors ceased not to place in opposition to the 
Sovereign Pontiffs. Hence this party could not fail to 
be taken for that of orthodoxy, or of Popery (if I may 
be allowed to use, in its proper acceptation, a word spoiled 
by sectarian abuse). Muratori, even, although very impe- 
rialist, in his Annals of Italy, often designates the Guelfs 
and the Ghibellines (perhaps without much reflection) by 
the names of Catholics and Schismatics} But, let it be 
repeated, the Guelfs owed not their origin to the Popes. 

a Maimbourg, an 1317. 

b La legge cattolica. — La parte cattolica. — Lafazione de' scisma- 
tici, &c. — Murat, Ann. d'ltalia, torn. vi. pp. 267, 269, 317, &c. 



CHAP. XII.] 



REFLECTIONS, ETC. 



209 



Every candid man, who is conversant with the history of 
those unhappy times, knows that in such a state of things 
peace was impossible. There is nothing so unjust, and at 
the same time so unreasonable, as to attribute to the Popes 
political tempests that were absolutely unavoidable, but the 
effects of which they not unfrequently mitigated by the 
influence of their authority. 

It would be very difficult, not to say impossible, to point 
out, in the history of those unfortunate times, a single war 
produced by an excommunication. This evil was, for the 
most part, added to some other, when, in the midst of a 
war that had already arisen out of political affairs, the 
Popes had ground for believing that it was their duty to 
show severity. 

The time of Henry IV. and that of Frederick II. are the 
two periods at which there might be most reason for saying 
that excommunication produced war ; and, even on those 
occasions, how many extenuating circumstances were there 
not — inevitably arising from the state of matters, from into- 
lerable provocations, from the indispensable duty of defend- 
ing the Church, from the precautionary measures with 
which the Sovereign Pontiffs found it necessary to surround 
themselves, in order to diminish the evil ! a 

a We see, for instance, that Gregory VII. only decided on 
acting against Henry IV. when the danger and the evils of the 
Church appeared to him intolerable. We find, moreover, that 
instead of declaring him fallen, he was content with subjecting 
him to the judgment of the German electors, and with instructing 
them to name another emperor if they thought proper. In proceed- 
ing thus, it must certainly be admitted, founding on the ideas of 
the present day, that he showed moderation. But if the electors 
came to be divided, and occasioned a war, it was by no means 
what the Pope desired. It will be said, " who wills the cause, 
wills the effect." Not at all, if the first mover have no choice, 
and if the effect depend on a free agent, who does wrong, having 
it in his power to act right. I agree, moreover, that all this be 
considered merely as in extenuation. I am no more partial to 
reasonings than to exaggerated pretensions. 



P 



210 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT — REFLECTIONS ON 
THE WARS. 

It would certainly be displeasing to the Popes to main- 
tain that they never were in the least to blame. We owe 
them only truth, and they require no more. But if it has 
sometimes happened to them to overstep, in regard to the 
emperors, the bounds of perfect moderation, equity demands 
that we should take into account, also, the wrongs and the 
violence beyond example that were practised in regard to 
them. I have often, in the course of my life, heard it 
asked, by what right the Popes deposed the emperors. The 
answer is at hand. By the right on which is founded all 
legitimate authority : possession, on the one side ; on the 
other, assent. But, supposing the reply were more diffi- 
cult, it would be allowed us at least to retort, and to 
inquire, by what right the emperors presumed to imprison, 
to banish, to outrage, to maltreat, and finally to depose the 
Sovereign Pontiffs ? 

I would have it observed, moreover, that the Popes who 
reigned in those difficult times — the Gregory, the Adrian, 
the Innocent, the Celestine, &c. — having all been men so 
distinguished by learning and virtue as to extort from their 
enemies, even, the testimony due to their moral character, 
it appears quite just that if, during the long and noble 
combat they sustained for religion and social order, against 
every vice upon the throne, there be some obscure points 
which history has not perfectly cleared up, we ought at 
least to do them the honour to presume that if they were 
present to defend themselves, they would be able to give us 
excellent reasons for proceeding as they did. 

But, in our age of philosophy, quite an opposite course 
has been followed. In the eyes of the philosophers, the 
emperors are everything — the Popes nothing. 51 How was 

a I mean the emperors of ancient times, the pagan emperors, 
the persecuting emperors, the emperors who were enemies of the 



CHAP. XIII.] 



REFLECTIONS, ETC. 



211 



it possible they should hate religion without hating also its 
august Chief ? Would to God the faithful were all as well 
persuaded as the infidels of the truth of this great maxim : 
" That the Church and the Pope are all one." a The latter 
were never under any mistake as to this fact, and, in con- 
sequence, never ceased to strike at this base of the great 
fabric, which presented so many obstacles. They were, 
unfortunately, powerfully aided in France — that is, in 
Europe — by the parliaments and the Jansenists, two parties 
who scarcely differed in anything but in name ; and by 
dint of attacks, of sophistry, and calumnies, the conspirators 
succeeded in creating a fatal prejudice, which dethroned the 
Pope in opinion, at least in the opinion of a great number 
of men, blind or blinded, and which ended by obtaining 
with many estimable characters. I cannot read without 
real alarm the following passage of the " Letters on 
History : 

" Louis le Debonnaire, dethroned by his children, is 
judged, condemned, absolved by an assembly of bishops. 
Hence that impolitic power which bishops have arrogated 
over sovereigns ; hence those sacrilegious or seditious ex- 
communications ; HENCE THOSE CRIMES OF LEZE-MAJESTY 

fulminated at St. Peter's of Rome, where the successor 
of St. Peter absolved nations from their oath of fidelity, 
where the successor of him who has said that his kingdom 
is not of this world, distributed sceptres and crowns, where 
the ministers of the God of peace provoked whole nations 
to murder/' b 

To find, even in Protestant authors, a passage written 
with so much anger, we should have to go back to Luther. 
I shall willingly suppose that it was penned in all possible 
sincerity ; but, if prejudice speaks the language of dis- 

Church, and who desired to tyrannize over it, to enslave it, to 
crush it. This is easily understood. As to Christian emperors 
and kings, it is well known in what favour philosophy holds 
them. Charlemagne, even, scarcely enjoys the honour of giving 
them satisfaction. 

8 St. Francis of Sales, ut, supra, p. 59. 

b Lettres sur l'Histoire, torn. ii. liv. xxxv. p. 330. 

p 2 



212 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



honesty, what difference does it make to the imprudent 
or inattentive reader who swallows the poison ? The term 
of leze-majesty is strange, when applied to a sovereign 
power which happens to come into conflict with another, 
or is it to be understood that the Pope is inferior to other 
sovereigns ? As a temporal prince, he is equal in dignity 
to all other princes ; but when to this title is added that 
of "supreme chief of Christianity/' a none can claim to 
be his equal ; and the interest of Europe — I do not say 
too much — requires that all men should be well convinced 
of this. Let us suppose that the Pope has excommuni- 
cated some sovereign without sufficient cause ; he will 
have been guilty pretty much in the same way as was 
Louis XIV. when — in defiance of all the laws of justice, 
of decency, and of religion — he caused Innocent XII. b to be 
insulted in the midst of Rome. The conduct of this great 
prince may be designated by any name whatever excepting 
always that of leze-majesty, which could have been appro- 
priately applied only to the conduct of the Marquis of 
Lavardin, if he had acted without orders. 

The sacrilegious excommunications are not less ridi- 
culous, and, after all that has been said, do not require, 
I think, any discussion. I would only cite, in opposition 
to this terrible enemy of the Popes, an authority which 
I value exceedingly, and which it will not be in his power, 
I hope, wholly to reject : — 

a This is the remarkable title the illustrious Burke bestowed 
on the Pope, in one of his works or parliamentary discourses 
which I have no longer at hand. He meant, no doubt, that the 
Pope is the chief of those Christians, even, who deny him. A great 
truth acknowledged by a great personage. 

b Bonus et pacificus pontifex.— Boss. Gall. Orthod. § 6. 

c He entered Rome at the head of eight hundred men, as a 
conqueror rather than as an ambassador, and came literally to 
demand, in the name of his master, the right to protect crime. He 
paid to his own court the delicate compliment of communicating 
publicly in his chapel, after having been excommunicated by 
the Pope. It is on this Marquis de Lavardin that Madame de 
Sevigne has written the singular eulogium that may be read in 
her letter of 16th October, 1675. 



CHAP. XIII.] REFLECTIONS, ETC. 



213 



" In the time of the crusades/' says the author of the 
" Letters on History/' " the power of the Popes was great ; 
their anathemas, their interdicts were respected, dreaded. 
The prince who would ham been inclined to disturb the 
states of a sovereign engaged in a crusade, knew that he 
exposed himself to an excommunication, which might have 
made him lose his own. This idea, besides, was generally 
diffused and adopted." a 

It would be possible, as is obvious, and I would wil- 
lingly undertake the task, to compose on this text alone 
a book entitled " The Utility of Sacrilege." But why 
confine this utility to the time of the crusades ? A re- 
pressive power is never rightly judged, if all the evil it 
prevents is not taken into consideration. And this was 
the triumph of pontifical authority in the times of which 
we are speaking. How many crimes has it not hindered, 
and for how many benefits is not the world indebted to 
it ! To compensate for some struggle, more or less for- 
tunate, which figures in history, how many fatal thoughts, 
how many terrible desires, has it not stifled in the hearts 
of princes ! How many sovereigns must have said in their 
secret conscience : " No, we will not expose ourselves ! " 
The authority of the Popes was, during several centuries, 
the real constituent power in Europe. It created European 
monarchy, that wonderful work of more than human work- 
manship, which we coldly admire, like the sun, because we 
behold it every day. 

I make no remark on the logic which argues from the 
celebrated words, " My kingdom is not of this world/' to 
establish that the Pope could never have exercised, without 
crime, any jurisdiction over sovereigns. This is a common- 
place, of which, perhaps, I shall have occasion yet to speak ; 
but we cannot read without the deepest melancholy the 
accusation brought against the Popes, of having provoked 
nations to murder. He ought, at least, to have said, 
provoked to war ; for there is nothing more essential than 
to call everything by its appropriate name. I knew that 



a Lettres sur PHistoire, liv. xlvii. p. 494. 



214 THE POPE. [BOOK II. 

the soldier kills ; but I was not aware that he is a mur- 
derer. There is much said about war, whilst few know 
that it is necessary, and that it is we ourselves who make 
it so. But, without diving into this question, let it suffice 
to repeat, that the Popes, as temporal princes, have as good 
a right as other sovereigns to wage war ; and, provided 
they have waged it (and this is incontestable) less fre- 
quently, more justly, and more humanely than other 
princes, nothing more can be rightly required of them. Far 
from provoking to war, they on the contrary laboured, with 
all their power, to prevent it ; they invariably intervened 
as mediators, when circumstances permitted ; and, more, 
than once, they excommunicated princes, or threatened 
them with excommunication, in order to avert wars. As 
to excommunications, it is not easy, as we have seen, to 
prove that they produced the wars laid to their charge. 
Besides, the right was incontestable ; and abuses, merely 
of human growth, ought never to be taken into account. 
If men, sometimes, made use of excommunications as pre- 
texts for waging war, in such cases even they fought in 
opposition to the will of the Popes, who never desired, 
and never could desire war. Without the temporal power 
of the Popes, political affairs could not have proceeded ; 
and the greater its vitality, the fewer wars will there be ; 
for it is the only power whose interest it evidently is to 
maintain peace. 

As to wars that were just, holy even, and necessary, 
as were the crusades, if the Popes provoked them, and 
sustained them with all their might, they did well, and 
we owe them our unfailing gratitude. But I am not writing 
on the crusades. 

And if the Sovereign Pontiffs had always acted as me- 
diators, does any one believe that they would at least have 
enjoyed the marvellous felicity of obtaining the approval 
of our age? By no means. The Pope is displeasing to 
it in every way, and in all conceivable relations. We may 
hear again the same judge a complain that the envoys of 



* " For a long time the political centre of Europe had been 



CHAP. XIV.] THE BULL INTER CETERA. 



215 



the Sovereign Pontiff were called to those great treaties, 
by which the fate of nations was decided, and congratu- 
late himself that this abuse would no longer exist. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE BULL OF ALEXANDER TI., INTER CETERA. 

A cexturt before the time of the celebrated treaty of 
Westphalia, a Pope who presents in his own person a me- 
lancholy exception to that long series of virtues by which 
the Holy See has been honoured, published the famous 
bull which divided between the Spaniards and the Por- 
tuguese those territories which the enterprising genius of 
discovery had already given, or might afterwards give, to 
the two nations, in the Indies and in America. The fin- 
ger of the Pontiff traced a line on the globe, which the 
two nations agreed to consider as a sacred boundary, which 
ambition should respect on either side. 

Nothing more grand could have been witnessed than 
the two people thus submitting such differences as then 
existed between them, and such as might afterwards occur, 
to the disinterested decision of the common Father of all 

forcibly established at Rome. It had been transferred thither by 
circumstances and considerations rather religious than political. 
And it ought to have begun to remove from thence by degrees, in 
proportion as men learned to separate politics from religion (a 
great work truly !) and to avoid the evils which their connection 
had too frequently produced." — Lettres sur l'Histoire, torn. iv. 
liv. xcvi. p. 470. 

( I would venture, on the contrary, to express my belief that the 
title of born mediator (between Christian princes) accorded to the 
Sovereign Pontiff, would be, of all titles, the most natural, the 
most magnificent, and the most sacred. I can imagine nothing 
more grand than his ambassadors, in the midst of every great 
congress, claiming peace without having waged war ; having 
never to utter the words acquisition or restitution, in regard to the 
common Father, and speaking only in behalf of justice, humanity, 
and religion.— Fiat! Fiat! 



216 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



the Faithful, and so substituting the most imposing arbi- 
tration for interminable wars. It was a great happiness 
for humanity that the Pontifical dignity had yet sufficient 
influence to obtain this remarkable consent, and the noble 
arbitration was so worthy of a true successor of St. Peter, 
that the bull " Inter csetera " ought to belong to another 
Pontiff. 

Here, at least, it is only reasonable to expect that our 
age should give its approval ; but it is quite otherwise. 
Marmontel has decided, in express terms, "that of all 
the crimes of Borgia, this bull was the greatest/' a We 
need not be surprised at this unintelligible decision on the 
part of a disciple of Voltaire ; but we shall presently see 
that a French senator has shown himself neither more rea- 
sonable nor more indulgent. I shall give his opinion at 
length, as it is indeed an extraordinary one, especially in 
an astronomical point of view : 

" Rome/' says he, " which for several centuries had pre- 
tended to bestow sceptres and kingdoms on its own con- 
tinent, would no longer be satisfied with any other limits to 
its authority than those of the world. The equator, even, 
was subjected to the chimerical power of its concessions/' b 

The pacific line traced on the globe by the Roman 
Pontiff was a meridian ; c and such circles having, as every 
one knows, the invariable pretension of passing from the 
one pole to the other, without stopping anywhere, if they 
chance to fall in with the equator on their way, which may 
easily happen, they will certainly intersect at right angles, 
but without the least inconvenience either to the Church or 
the state. We must not believe, besides, that Alexander VI. 
stopped at the equator, or that he took it for the limit of 
the world. That Pope, who was not, it is true, the most 
exemplary of men, but who possessed great talents, and had 
read his " Sacro Bosco/' was not liable to be mistaken in 
such a matter. I must say, moreover, that I carmot under- 

a Les Incas, torn. i. p. 12. 
b Lettres sur l'Hist. torn. iii. let. lvii. p. 157. 
c Fabricando et construendo lineam a polo arctico ad pohim 
antarcticum. — Bull " Inter caetera," of Alexander VI. 1493. 



CHAP. XV.] THE BULL IN CCENA DOMINI. 217 

stand how he can be justly accused of having made an at- 
tempt on the equator even, only because he interposed as 
arbiter between two princes whose possessions were, or ought 
to have been, divided by that great circle even. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE BULL " IN CGENA DOMINI." 

There is not a man in Europe, perhaps, who has not 
heard speak of the bull " In ccena Domini but how 
many are there in Europe who have taken the trouble to 
read it, I know not. It appears to me certain, however, 
that a very wise man may have spoken of it in the most 
unmeasured terms, without having read it. 

It is of the number, says such a man, " of so many 
shameful documents, the language of which he ventures not 
to cite 1" a 

We might well suppose that there is question here of 
Joan of Arc or the Giant of Sygeum. As books in folio 
are little read in our day, unless such as are historical, and 
moreover beautifully illuminated, I believe I shall not per- 
form a superfluous task by presenting here to the general 
reader the substance of this famous bull. When children 
are terrified by some distant object, magnified and disfigured 
by their imagination, it is necessary, in order to refute a 
credulous bonne, who tells them " it is a monster, a ghost/' 
to take them gently by the hand, and conduct them with 
all cheerfulness of manner to the source of their alarm. 

ANALYSIS OF THE BULL « In C<ena Domini." 
The Pope excommunicates — 
Art. 1. All heretics. b 

s Lettres sur l'Histoire, torn. ii. lettre xxxv. p. 225, note. 

b On this point at least, I should imagine there is no difficulty. 
As heretics are those who wilfully and obstinately reject the Church, 
it is by no means unreasonable that the Church should deny them 
the privilege of its communion. (Hence all who have been edu- 
cated in other creeds than that of the Catholic Church cannot be 
considered heretics.) 



218 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



Art. 2. All who appeal to a future council. 3. 
Art. 3. All pirates ranging the seas without letters of 
marque. 

Art. 4. Every man who shall dare to steal anything from 
a shipwrecked vessel. 5 

Art. 5. All who shall establish in their lands new taxes, 
or shall take it upon them to increase those already exist- 
ing, except in cases provided for by the law, or in the event 
of obtaining the express permission of the Holy See. c 

Art. 6. The falsifiers of apostolic letters. 

Art. 7. All who shall furnish arms or munitions of war 
of any kind to Turks, Saracens, or heretics. 

Art. 8. All who intercept provisions of any kind what- 
soever on their way to Eome for the use of the Pope. 

a Whatever side is taken on the question of appeals to a future 
council, we cannot blame a Pope, particularly a Pope of the four- 
teenth century, who severely represses those appeals as subversive 
of all ecclesiastical government. Saint Augustine, so long ago as 
his early age, thus addressed certain appellants : " And who are 
you, that you must needs disturb the world ?" I doubt not but 
that among the most decided partisans of such appeals, there are 
several who will honestly admit that on the part of private indi- 
viduals at least, nothing can be supposed more anti-catholic, more 
indecent, and more inadmissible in every respect. We might, 
indeed, imagine a case, presenting plausible appearances ; but 
what shall we say of a wretched sectary who should fall upon 
the wise idea of sending an appeal from his garret to a general 
council. Sovereignty is like nature, — it does nothing in vain. 
Why talk of a general council, when the pillory is sufficient. 

b It is impossible to imagine anything more noble or more in 
harmony with our better feelings than this proceeding on the part 
of religious supremacy. 

c Considering the ordinary taxes on each state as legally esta- 
blished, the Pope decides that they cannot be increased, that new 
taxes cannot be imposed, except in such cases as are foreseen by 
national law, or in cases that are wholly unforeseen and extraor- 
dinary, and then by virtue of a dispensation from the Holy See. 
In reading these " infamous things" I own it, to my great confu- 
sion, I must have become proof against shame, 

" Je me sois fait un front qui ne rougit jamais ; " 

for in transcribing them I experience no such feeling, but rather, 
I may say, take much pleasure in the task. ■ 



CHAP. XV.] THE BULL IN CCENA DOMINI. 219 

Art. 9. Those who shall kill, mutilate, rob, or imprison 
persons on their way to the Pope or returning from him. 

Art. 10. Those who shall treat as above described pil- 
grims whom devotion induces to "visit Eome. 

Art. 11. Those who should be guilty of the like acts of 
violence towards cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, 
and legates of the Holy See. a 

Art. 12. Those who strike, rob, or maltreat any person 
on account of causes he is pursuing at the courts of Rome. b 

Art. 13. Those who, under the pretence of a frivolous 
appeal, transfer causes from the ecclesiastical to the secular 
tribunal. 

Art. 14. Those who bring cases of disputed benefices 
and tithes into lay courts. 

Art. 15. Those who cite ecclesiastics before lay tribunals. 

Art. 16. Those who rob prelates of their legitimate juris- 
diction. 

Art. 1 7. Those who sequestrate jurisdictions or revenues 
legitimately belonging to the Pope. 

Art. 18. Those who impose on the Church new tributes 
without the permission of the Holy See. 

a The four preceding articles depict the age in which they were 
necessary. Who, in our day, would dream of intercepting pro- 
visions destined for the Pope, or lying in wait for travellers 
on their way to the Pope, in order to rob, mutilate, or kill 
them ? who would think of offering violence to pilgrims, car- 
dinals, or the legates of the Holy See ? But, once more, the acts 
of sovereigns ought never to be judged, without taking into con- 
sideration the times and places to which they relate. And although 
the Popes had gone too far in their different regulations, we would 
only be entitled to say they went too far. And this would be quite 
enough. We can never suppose any need for oratorical excla- 
mations, much less occasion for shame. 

b On the one hand are heat, robbed, maltreated, those who carry 
their pleas to Rome, and on the other those who strike, rob, or 
maltreat are excommunicated. Where lies the blame % and who 
ought to be blamed? If men's eyes were not wilfully closed, 
they would see that when there are mutual wrongs, it is the 
height of injustice to see them only on one side ; that there is no 
means of avoiding such struggles, and that the fermentation 
which disturbs the wine is an indispensable preliminary to its 
clarification. 



220 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



Art. 19. Those who take* an active part in capital prose- 
cutions against priests without the permission of the Holy 
See. 

Art. 20. Those who usurp the countries or territories 
under the sovereignty of the Pope. 

What follows is of no importance. 

Here, then, is that celebrated bull In ccend Domini ! 
Every one may now form his own opinion of it. And I 
doubt not but every candid reader who has heard it de- 
nounced as "a disgraceful monument, the language of 
which dare not be quoted/' will at once be satisfied that 
the author of this judgment had not read the bull, and 
that this is the most favourable conclusion that can be 
come to in regard to a man of such great merit. Several 
dispositions of the bull are the emanations of superior wis- 
dom, and altogether would have constituted the police of 
Europe in the fourteenth century. The two last Popes, 
Clement XIV. and Pius VI., ceased to publish it every 
year, according to the ancient custom. Since they did so, 
they did right. They no doubt believed it was their duty 
to make some concessions to the ideas of the age ; but I do 
not see that Europe has gained by the change. However 
this may be, it is worth while to observe that our bold in- 
novators caused torrents of blood to flow, in order to obtain, 
but without success, some of the articles consecrated more 
than three centuries ago by the bull, and which it would 
have been eminently unreasonable to expect sovereigns to 
concede. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

DIGRESSION ON ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. 

The last articles of the bull In coend Domini relate 
almost wholly, as we have just seen, to ecclesiastical juris- 
diction. Thousands and thousands of times has this power 
been accused of encroaching on the other, and of attracting 
all causes to its own tribunal, by means of sophistry, sup- 



CHAP. XVI.] ON ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. 221 

ported by the oath appended to contracts, &c. It would be 
a sufficient refutation of this charge to observe that in all 
countries, and under all imaginable governments, the direc- 
tion of affairs naturally belongs to science, and that all 
science originated in the temples, and was from thence 
communicated to society ; that the word clergy having be- 
come, in the ancient language of Europe, synonymous with 
that of science, it was at once just and natural that the 
clerk should judge the layman, in other words, that science 
should judge ignorance, until the dissemination of know- 
ledge restored the equilibrium ; that the influence of the 
clergy in civil and political affairs was a great happiness for 
humanity, as has been remarked by all sincere and well- 
informed writers ; that those who refuse to do justice to 
the canon law have never read it ; that this code has given 
a form to our judicial proceedings, and corrected or abo- 
lished numerous subtleties of the Roman law, which were 
not suited to us, if ever they were good ; that the canon 
law was preserved in Germany, notwithstanding all the 
efforts of Luther, by the Protestant doctors, who taught it, 
eulogized it, and even expounded it ; that in the thirteenth 
century it had been solemnly approved by a decree of the 
diet of the Empire, promulgated under Frederick II., an 
honour never conferred upon the Roman law, &c. &c. a 

But I will not avail myself of all my advantages. I in- 
sist here only on the injustice which persists in seeing only 
the faults of the one power, and closes its eyes to those of 
the other. We are always told of the usurpations of eccle- 
siastical jurisdiction ; for my part, I do not accept this 
word without explanation. And, indeed, to enjoy, to take, 
to take possession of, even, are not always synonymous with 
usurp. But, although there should really have been usur- 
pation, could there be any more glaring and more unjust 
exemplification of it than in the conduct of the temporal 
jurisdiction in regard to its sister, which it so falsely called 
its enemy? Call to mind, for instance, the honourable 
stratagem which the French tribunals had employed to rob 



a Zahvein, Princip. Juris Eccl. torn. ii. p. 283, et seq. 



222 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK II. 



the Church of her most incontestable jurisdiction. It is 
most proper that this piece of jugglery should be known to 
those even who are the least conversant with the laws. 

" Every question connected with tithes or benefices be- 
longs to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. No doubt/' said the 
parliaments, " the principle is incontestable, as to the de- 
mand (petitoire), that is to say, if there be question, for 
instance, of deciding to whom really belongs a contested 
benefice ; but, if there be question of the possessory, or of 
knowing which of the two pretenders actually possesses, or 
ought to be sustained until the real right be inquired into, 
we must judge, considering that there is question only of 
an act of high police, intended to prevent quarrels and 
deeds of violence/' a 

" Behold now we understand one another," common sense 
would say; "make haste to decide on the point of possession, 
in order that there may be no delay in coming to a decision 
on the real merits of the case/' " Oh ! you understand 
nothing about it," the magistrates would say ; " there is no 
doubt of the jurisdiction of the Church as to the demand 
(petitoire) ; but we have decided that the demand cannot 
be judged before the possessory ; and that this point once 
settled, it is no longer allowed to examine the other." b 

And thus did the Church lose a most important branch 

a Ne partes ad arma veniant. A maxim of the jurisprudence 
of those times, when men cut one another's throats before the 
judges could have time to decide. It is remarkable that it was 
the canon law which caused to be held in great honour this 
theory of the possessory, in order to avert crimes and acts of 
violence, as may be seen in several canons, particularly in the 
canon reintegrand^e, so celebrated in the tribunals. The 
weapon which the Church presented to the tribunals has since 
been turned against herself. 

Non hos qusesitum munus in usus. 

b The royal ordinance says expressly, that for the demand 
(petitoire), recourse will be had to the ecclesiastical judge." — 
Fleury, Disc, sur les Libertes de l'Eglise Gall, dans ses opusc. 
p. 90. Thus, in order to extend their jurisdiction, did the 
parliaments violate the royal law. There are other examples of 
the same kind. 



CHAP. XVI.] ON ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION. 223 

of her jurisdiction. Now, let me ask every man and every 
woman, every intelligent child even, Was there ever ima- 
gined more disgraceful chicanery, more revolting usurpa- 
tion ? Could the Gallican Church, thus encrusted all over 
as it were by the parliaments, retain the least freedom of 
action ? She boasted of her rights, her privileges, her 
liberties ; and the magistrates, with their royal cases, their 
possessories, and their appeals as on ground of error (appels 
comme d'abus), had left her no liberty, except as regarded 
some of her less important spiritual functions. 

I shall never have sufficiently repeated that I like not, 
and maintain not, any exaggeration. I pretend not that 
we ought to return to the customs and the public law of 
the twelfth century ; but, at the same time, I shall never 
have sufficiently asserted, that, in confounding periods es- 
sentially distinct, there has been also confusion of ideas ; 
that the French magistrates had contracted a high degree 
of guilt, in maintaining an actual state of war between the 
Holy See and France, which indoctrinated Europe with its 
perverse maxims ; and that there is nothing more false 
than the light in which were represented the ancient clergy 
in general, but particularly the Sovereign Pontiffs, who 
were undoubtedly the preceptors of kings, the preservers of 
science, and the instructors of Europe. 



224 



BOOK III. 

THE POPE IN HIS RELATIONS WITH CIVILIZATION AND 
THE HAPPINESS OF NATIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

MISSIONS. 

In order to make known the services done to mankind 
by the Sovereign Pontiffs, we could do nothing better than 
transcribe the English work of Dr. Ryan, — "Benefits of 
Christianity ;" for these benefits are those* of the Popes, 
Christianity acting externally only through them. All the 
Churches that are separated from the Pope are governed 
within themselves according to the peculiar views of each ; 
but they are powerless as regards the diffusion of evangelical 
light. The work of Christianity will never be advanced 
through their means. Deservedly barren from the time of 
their divorce, they will never resume their primitive fecun- 
dity, except by uniting once more with the bridegroom. To 
whom belongs the work of missions V — To the Pope, and 
the missionaries sent from the Holy See. Consider that fa- 
mous Bible Society, the weak and perhaps dangerous rival 
of our missions. It informs us, every year, how many 
copies of the Bible it launches into the world ; but it al- 
ways omits to tell us how many new Christians it has pro- 
duced. 3 But if the money which this society spends on 

a The evils this society is calculated to originate have not ap- 
peared doubtful to the Anglican Church, which has more than 
once exhibited symptoms of alarm. If we inquire what sort of 
good it is destined to produce in carrying out, as everything must 
do, the designs of Providence, we find, in the first place, that this 
enterprise may be a quite new and even divine species of pre- 



CHAP. I.] 



MISSION! 



225 



Bibles were given to the Pope, to be devoted to the expenses 
of missions, he would by this time have made more Chris- 
tians than there are pages in all the Bibles of the association. 

The separated Churches, and the first of them all parti- 
cularly, have made various attempts in this way ; but all 
these pretended evangelical labourers, separated from the 
Chief Pastor of the Church, resemble those animals which 
art has trained to walk on two feet, and to counterfeit 
certain human attitudes. They may succeed to a certain 
extent ; they are even admired on account of the difficulty 
surmounted ; nevertheless, it is seen that all is forced work, 
and that nothing could be more satisfactory to the poor 
creatures than to be once more upon their four legs. 

Although such men had nothing against them but their 
divisions, nothing more would be necessary to render them 
powerless. Anglicans, Lutherans, Moravians, Methodists, 
Baptists, Puritans, Quakers, fyc. — such are the people with 
whom heathens have to deal. The Scripture says, " How 
shall they hear (understand), if no one preach to them V 
It may be said, with equal truth, u How will they be be- 
lieved, if they do not understand (hear) one another V 3 

An English missionary has felt this curse of sterility, 
and has expressed himself in regard to it with candour, de- 
licacy, and truly religious sincerity, which show that he 
was worthy of that mission* which was wanting to him. 

" The missionary," he says, " ought to be far above a 
narrow bigotry, b and ought to possess a truly Catholic 

paration for the Gospel. It might, besides, contribute powerfully 
to restore to us the Anglican Church, which certainly will not 
escape destruction from the blows inflicted on it by the principles 
of this society. 

a " How shall they preach, unless they he sent V — Rom. x. 15. 

b This word bigotry, which, according to its acceptation in the 
English language, conveys the idea of blind zeal, prejudice, and 
superstition, is applied, nowadays, by the liberal pen of English 
writers, to every man who takes the liberty to believe differently 
from those gentlemen, and we have even had the pleasure to hear 
the reviewers of Edinburgh (les reviseurs d'Edimbourg) accuse 
Bossuet of bigotry. (Edin. Rev. Oct. 1808, No. 5, p. 215.) Bossuet 
a bigot ! The world has made a discovery. 

Q 



226 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



spirit. 8 It is not his duty to teach Calvinism or Armin- 
ianism, but Christianity. It is not his object to propagate 
an Anglican hierarchy, nor the principles of the Protestant 
dissenters, but to serve the universal Church? I wish the 
missionary to be well persuaded that the success of his 
ministry by no means depends on the points of separation, 
but on those which enjoy the concurrent assent of all reli- 
gious men/' c 

By this passage we are recalled to the eternal and idle 
distinction of fundamental and non-fundamental dogmas. 
It has been again and again refuted ; it were superfluous 
now to return to the discussion. Every dogma has been 
denied by some one of the dissenters. What right has any 
one of them to claim a preference over the rest ? He who 
denies only one dogma loses the right to teach so much as 
one. How, besides, can we believe that the power of the 
gospel is not divine, and that, as would necessarily follow, 
it may be found out of the Church ? The divinity of this 
power is as obvious as the sun. " It seems/' says Bossuet, 
"as if the Apostles and their first disciples had laboured 
under-ground to establish so many churches in so short a 
time, whilst none knew how it was done." d 

The Empress Catherine II., in an exceedingly curious 
letter, which I have read at St. Petersburgh, 6 says that she 
had often observed with admiration the influence of missions 
on the civilization of and political organization of the 
people : — " In proportion as religion advances, villages are 
seen to rise as if by enchantment/' &c. It was the ancient 

a Worthy man ! He says what he can, and his words are re- 
markable. 

b He repeats here in English what he has just said in Greek. 
Whether he say catholic or universal, it matters not. It is evident 
that he feels the want of unity, which cannot he found apart from 

universality. 

c See " Letters of Missions addressed to the Protestant Minis- 
ters of the British Churches, by Melville Home, late Chaplain of 
Sierra Leone, in Africa." Bristol, 1794. 

d Hist, des Var. liv. vii. No. xvi. 

e It was addressed to a Frenchman, M. de Meilhan, who be- 
longed, if I mistake not, to the ancient parliament of Paris. 



CHAP. I.] 



MISSIONS. 



227 



Church that effected these wonders, because it then pos- 
sessed a legitimate existence. It was quite in the power of 
the Russian sovereign to compare this vigour and fecundity 
with the absolute nullity of that same Church when sepa- 
rated from the great root. 

The learned Chevalier Jones has remarked the impotence 
of evangelical preaching in India (British India). He 
despairs entirely of being able to overcome the national pre- 
judices. The best thing he can devise is to translate into 
Persian and Sanscrit the most decisive texts of the Prophets, 
and try their effect upon the natives. a It is always the 
great error of Protestants to persist in commencing by 
science, whilst it is really necessary to begin by authorita- 
tive preaching, accompanied with music, pictorial represen- 
tations, solemn rites, and everything calculated to show 
what religion is without discussion ; but to pride, this way 
of proceeding will ever be unintelligible. 

Mr. Claudius Buchanan, an Anglican doctor of theology, 
published some years ago a work on the state of . Chris- 
tianity in India, and displays throughout the most astound- 
ing fanaticism, together with many interesting observations. b 
The fruitlessness of Protestant attempts at conversion is 
acknowledged in every page ; and, at the same time, the 
total indifference of the British government towards the 
religious establishment in that great country : 

a " If there be any human means of bringing about the conver- 
sion of those people (the Indians), it would be, perhaps, to trans- 
late into Sanscrit or Persian select passages of the ancient pro- 
phecies, to accompany them with a reasoned preface, in which 
would be shown the perfect accomplishment of these prophecies, 
and to disseminate the work among the natives who have received 
a distinguished education. If this means, with time, produced 
no salutary effects, we could only deplore the force of prejudice, 
and the weakness of unassisted reason." — W. Jones's works, on 
the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India, torn. i. in4to. pp. 279, 280. 

There is nothing more true nor more remarkable than what 
Sir William Jones here says in regard to unassisted reason ; 
but for him, as for so many others, it was a barren truth. 

b Vid. Christian Researches in Asia, by the Rev. Claudius 
Buchanan, D.D. in 8vo. London, 1812, ninth edition. 

Q2 



228 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



" There are twenty English regiments in Asia/' he says, 
" without a single chaplain. The soldiers live and die 
without performing any act of religion. a The governors 
of Bengal and Madras accord no protection to the Chris- 
tians of the country ; they prefer granting employments 
to Hindoos and Mahometans. b At Saffera, the whole 
country is under the power (spiritual) of the Catholics, 
who quietly took possession of it, through the indifference 
of the English ; and the British government, rightly c pre- 
ferring the Catholic superstition to the worship of Buddha, 
supports at Ceylon the Catholic religion. d A Catholic 
priest said to him : £ How would you have your nation 
employ itself in converting to Christianity its Pagan sub- 
jects, whilst it refuses Christian instruction to its own 
Christian subjects f ' e So Mr. Buchanan was not sur- 
prised to learn that every year a great number of Pro- 
testants returned to idolatry? Never, perhaps, at any 
period of Christianity, was the religion of Christ humbled 
to such a degree as it has been in the island of Ceylon, 
through the official neglect the Protestant Church has been 
made to experienced Such is the indifference of the Bri- 
tish, that, if it pleased God to deprive them of the Indies, 
there would scarcely remain in those countries a proof 
that they had been governed by a people who had them- 
selves received the light of the Gospel. h In all the mili- 

a Christian Researches in Asia, p. 80. 
b Ibid. pp. 89, 90. 

c It is indeed kind on his part to give the preference to Catho- 
licism over the religion of Buddha. 
d Christian Researches in Asia, p. 95. 

e The government has not zeal, because it has not faith. Its 
conscience deprives it of strength ; and this is what the blind 
minister does not or will not see. 

f Christian Researches in Asia, p. 95. 

s We have here another proof of the delicate attention of the 
British government, which possesses sufficient wisdom not to 
attempt planting the religion of Christ, in a country where that 
of Jesus Christ already prevails ; but how can an official ecclesias- 
tic understand all that ? 

h Christian Researches in Asia, p. 283, note. 



CHAP. I.] 



MISSIONS. 



229 



tary stations is observable an almost total extinction of 
Christianity. Great numbers of men grow old, far from 
their country, in pleasure and independence, without be- 
holding the least sign of the religion of their native land. 
Such an Englishman, for instance, has not for twenty 
years witnessed the performance of Divine service. 41 It is 
a most extraordinary thing, that, in exchange for the pepper 
furnished by the wretched Indian, England refuses him 
even the New Testament. 5 When the author reflects on 
the immense power of the Eoman Church in India, and 
the inability of the Anglican clergy to counteract its in- 
fluence, he adopts the opinion that the Protestant Church 
would not do amiss to seek an ally in the Syrian, which 
inhabits the same countries, and which possesses every- 
thing requisite for uniting with a pure Church, consider- 
ing that it makes profession of the doctrine of the Bible, 
and rejects the supremacy of the Pope." c 

Thus have we, from a pen the least liable to suspicion, 
the most explicit avowals of the nullity of the separated 
Churches : not only does the spirit which divides them 
annul them one after another ; it checks us also, and 
retards our success. On this point Voltaire has made an 
important remark : " The greatest obstacle/'' says he, " to 
our religious success in India, arises from the variety of 
opinions which divide our missionaries. The Catholic 
there does battle with the Anglican, — who, in his turn, 
wages war upon the Lutheran, — who is himself at issue 
with the Calvinist. Thus, all fighting against one another, 
each sect claims to announce the truth ; and, accusing 
the rest of falsehood, they astonish a simple and peaceable 
people, who behold arriving amongst them, from the western 

a Christian Researches in Asia, pp. 285 and 287. • 
b Ibid. p. 102. 

c Ibid. pp. 285-287. One would suppose the Catholic Church ' 
professed the doctrines of the Alhoran ! The English clergy need 
not natter themselves that these shameful extravagances will meet 
with the same indulgence and compassion they are treated with 
by us, among sensible men of their own country. 



230 



THE POPES. 



[BOOK III. 



extremities of the world, men ardently striving to destroy 
one another on the banks of the Ganges/' a 

The evil is not, however, by any means so great as is 
here asserted by Voltaire, who mistakes his wish for the 
reality. So far is this from being the case, that our supe- 
riority over the sects is manifest, and solemnly acknow- 
ledged, as has just been shown, even by our most bitter 
enemies. Nevertheless, the divided state of Christians is 
an enormous evil, which at least retards the great work, 
although it does not wholly interrupt it. Wo, then, to the 
sects that have torn the garment without seam ! But for 
them, the universe would be Christian. 

Another cause which tends to annul this pseudo-gospel 
ministry, is the moral state of its organs. They never rise 
above the level of probity, and are weak and miserable 
instruments for everything that requires sanctity. The 
missionary who has not bound himself, by the most solemn 
engagement, to rigid denial as regards the strongest of 
human propensities, will always remain inferior to his func- 
tions, and will at last become ridiculous or guilty. The 
result of the English missions at Tahiti is well known. 
Each apostle, having become a libertine, made no difficulty 
in acknowledging it, and the scandal has resounded through- 
out Europe. 5 

In the midst of barbarous nations, far from any superior, 
and all the support he might find in public opinion, alone 
with his heart and his passions, what can the merely human 
missionary effect ? What his colleagues effected at Tahiti. 
The best of this class is only suited, after having received 
his mission at the hands of the civil power, to go to inhabit 
a commodious house with his wife and his children, and to 
preach philosophically to subjects, under the cannon of his 

a Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, &c. torn. i. ch. iv. 

b I now hear that matters at Tahiti have since changed for the 
better. Without discussing the facts, which, perhaps, present 
only vain appearances, I shall only say, Of what consequence to us 
are those doubtful conquests of Protestantism in some imperceptible 
island of the South Sea, whilst they destroy Christianity in Europe ? 



CHAP. I.] 



MISSIONS. 



231 



sovereign. Real apostolical labours they will never venture 
to touch, even with the points of their fingers. 

We must, besides, make a distinction between civilized 
and barbarian infidels. To the latter we may say whatever 
we please ; but, fortunately, heresy dares not address them. 
With regard to the former, it is quite otherwise : they are 
already sufficiently well-informed to be able to discern us. 
When Lord M'Cartney was about to depart on his cele- 
brated embassy, his Britannic majesty requested that the 
Pope would send some students of Propaganda who knew 
the Chinese language : this request the Holy Father cor- 
dially agreed to. Cardinal Borgia, then at the head of 
Propaganda, begged in his turn that Lord M'Cartney would 
be pleased to avail himself of the circumstance, to recom- 
mend at Pekin the Catholic missions. The ambassador 
willingly agreed to discharge the commission, as became a 
man of his condition ; but what was his surprise to hear 
the collao (or first minister) make reply, " that the empe- 
ror was very much astonished to see the British protecting, 
in the heart of Asia, a religion which their fathers had 
abandoned in Europe ! " This anecdote, which I learned 
at the fountain-head, shows that these men are better in- 
formed than we believe, in regard to matters to which they 
might appear to us to be utter strangers. Let an Anglican 
preacher, then, go to China, and announce to his hearers 
" That Christianity is the finest thing in the world, but 
that unfortunately this Divine religion was corrupted, in 
its early youth, by two great apostasies — that of Mahomet 
in the East, and that of the Pope in the West ; that these 
two apostasies having begun at the same time, and being 
destined to last 1,260 years, a they must both fall toge- 

a The nations being destined to trample under foot the Holy 
City during forty -two months (Apoc. xi. 2), it is clear that by 
nations must be understood Mahometans. Moreover, forty-two 
months make 1,260 days, allowing thirty days to each month ; 
this is evident. But every day signifies a year, therefore 1,260 
days are equal to 1,260 years. Now, if to these 1,260 years are 
added 622, the date of the Hegira, the result will be 1,882 years ; 
therefore, Mahometanism cannot last beyond the year 1882. 



232 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



ther, and are already approaching their end ; that Maho- 
metanism and Catholicism are two parallel corruptions, 
and exactly of the same kind ; and that there is not in 
the world a man bearing the name of a Christian who 
can doubt the truth of this prophecy/' a Assuredly, the 
Mandarins, who shall hear these wondrous assertions, will 
take the preacher for a madman, and make sport of him 
accordingly. In all heathen countries that are civilized, 
if there exist men capable of receiving the truths of Chris- 
tianity, they will not have listened to us long without 
conceding to us the superiority over sectaries. Voltaire had 
his reasons for representing us a sect disputing with other 
sects ; but the sound sense of unprejudiced men will at 
once perceive, on the one hand, the Church one and un- 
changeable ; and, on the other, heresy with its thousand 
heads. Long before knowing its name, they know the 
monster itself, and keep on their guard. 

Our immense superiority is so well known, that it 

Now the papal corruption is doomed to end together with that 
of Mahomet, therefore, &c. Thus reasons Mr. Buchanan, whom 
I have quoted above (pp. 199, 200, 201). Our learned author 
might well have remarked that this ultra- Protestant doctor had 
only to reason as eloquently on a third " corruption," to equal in 
extravagance of blasphemy the author of the book " De Tribus 
Impostoribus." 

a When we consider that these inconceivable follies still dis- 
figure in the nineteenth century the Avorks of a number of English 
theologians, such as Doctors Daubeney, Faber, Cunningham, 
Buchanan, Hartley, Frere, &c, we cannot contemplate without a 
religious dread the abyss of aberrations into which the most just 
chastisement is plunging the most criminal rebellion. The mo- 
dern Attila, less civilized than the first, hurls from his throne 
the Sovereign Pontiff, makes him prisoner, and takes possession 
of his states. No sooner has he done so, than the heads of anti- 
Catholic writers are on fire. They believe it is all over with the 
Pope, and that God himself has no means of bringing him out of 
his difficulties. Behold then, how they compose in octavos on the 
accomplishment of the prophecies. But, whilst they are yet in the 
press, the power and the wishes of Europe restore the Pope to his 
throne, and, tranquil in the eternal city, he prays for the authors 
of those absurd productions. And so will it always be — Verbum 
Domini manet in aeternum. [And as it was then, et nunc et 

SEMPER.] 



CHAP. I.] 



MISSIONS. 



233 



alarmed even the East-India Company. Some French 
priests, borne to those countries on the wings of the revo- 
lutionary tempest, really made them tremble. They feared 
lest, in making Christians, they should make Frenchmen 
also. (No well-informed Englishman will deny this state- 
ment.) The East-India Company no doubt says, as we do, 
" May your kingdom come ! " but never without the cor- 
rective, " May our own remain ! " 

If our superiority be acknowledged in England, the 
nullity of the Anglican clergy, in this respect, is not less 
well understood. 

"■We do not believe/' said respectable journalists of that 
country, not many years ago, "we do not believe that the 
, Missionary Society is the work of God, ... for we cannot 
easily be persuaded that God may be the author of con- 
fusion, and that the dogmas of Christianity ought to be 
successively announced to Pagans by men who not only go 
without being sent* but who differ in opinion among them- 
selves, in so strange a manner as Calvinists differ with 
Arminians, Episcopalians with Presbyterians, and Pedo- 
baptists with Antipedobaptists . . . " 

The editors, after slightly noticing the flimsy system of 
essential dogmas, continue : " Among such heterogeneous 
missionaries, disputes are inevitable ; and their labours, 
instead of enlightening the nations, are only calculated to 
light up their prejudices against the Christian faith, if ever 
it should be announced to them in a more regular manner. h 

a Not only running unsent, is indeed a very remarkable ex- 
pression. The word missionary being precisely synonymous with 
sent (envoye), every missionary acting out of the pale of unity 
is obliged to say ("Je suis un envoye non envoye"), " I am a com- 
missioner without a commission." Although? the Missionary So- 
ciety should be approved by the Anglican Church, the same dif- 
ficulty would always exist ; for this church, not having been sent, 
has no right to send, Unsent is the general stigmatizing and 
indelible mark of every separated church. 

b What do the journalists mean by the expression " in a more 
regular manner ? " Can there be anything regular beyond the 
rule ? One may be more or less near a ship, but more or less 
within it is quite another thing. The Church of England even 



234 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



In a word, the Missionary Society can do no good, and may 
do a great deal of evil. 

" We believe, nevertheless, that it is a duty of the 
Church to preach the Gospel to unbelievers." a 

These avowals require no commentary. They are suffi- 
ciently plain. It would be superfluous to speak of the 
Eastern Churches, or any of those depending on them or 
making common cause with them. We could not do them 
justice more abundantly than they themselves have done. 
Convinced of their inefficiency, they have ended by making 
their apathy a sort of duty. They would conceive they 
made themselves ridiculous if they suffered themselves to 
harbour the idea of extending the conquests of the Gospel, 
and, through these conquests, the civilization of nations. 

The Church alone, therefore, possesses the honour, the 
power, and the right of missions ; and without the Sove- 
reign Pontiff there exists no Church. Was it not he who 
civilized Europe, and created that common feeling, that 
spirit of fraternity, by which we are characterized ? No 
sooner is the Holy See established, than the Sovereign Pon- 
tiffs are filled with universal solicitude. So early as the 
fifth century they send St. Severinus to Noricum (Bavaria 
and Austria), and other apostolic labourers preach the 
Gospel to the Spaniards, as we learn from the celebrated 
letter of Innocent I. to Decentius. In the same century, 
St. Palladius and St. Patrick appear in Ireland and in the 
north of Scotland. In the sixth, St. Gregory the Great 
sends St. Augustine to England. In the seventh, St. 
Kilian goes to Franconia, and St. Amandus preaches to 

suffers from a disadvantage the other separated churches are not 
subject to, for, as it is obviously alone, so is it absolutely null. 
(Vid. Monthly Political and Literary Censor, or Anti- Jacobin, 
March, 1803, vol. xiv. No. 9, pp. 280, 281.) But perhaps the 
words, " in a more regular manner" conceal some mystery, as I 
have often observed in the works of English authors. 

a Ibid. This is a great word. To the Church alone belongs 
the right, and consequently the duty, of preaching the gospel to in- 
fidels, jlf the editors had underlined the word Church, they would 
have preached to unbelievers a most important truth. 



CHAP. I.] 



MISSIONS. 



235 



the Carinthians, the Sclavonians, and all the barbarians who 
dwelt along the banks of the Danube. Elwulf de Verden 
travels to Saxony in the eighth century ; St. Willibrand 
and St. Swidbert to Friesland ; and St. Boniface fills Ger- 
many with his labours and his success. But the ninth 
century appears to be distinguished above all the rest, as if 
Providence had designed by great conquests to console the 
Church in anticipation of the misfortunes by which she was 
destined so soon after to be afflicted. In the course of this 
century, St. SifFroy was sent to the Swedes ; Ancharius of 
Hamburgh preached to these same Swedes, to the Vandals, 
and Sclavonians ; Rembertus de Breme, the brothers Cyril 
and Methodius, to the Bulgarians, to the Chazares, to the 
Turks of the Danube, to the Moravians, to the Bohe- 
mians, to the immense family of the Slavi. All these 
apostolic men together might have truly said : 

" Hie tandem stetimus nobis ubi defuit orbis." 

And, when the world was enlarged by the memorable enter- 
prises of modern navigators, did not the missionaries of the 
Sovereign Pontiff make haste to follow in the footsteps of 
those indefatigable discoverers ? Did they not go in search 
of martyrdom, as avarice sought gold and diamonds ? Were 
not their charitable hands constantly stretched out to repair 
the evils generated by our vices, and to render the robbers 
from Europe less odious to those remote populations ? 
What has not St. Francis Xavier done ? a Have not the 

a A Paulo tertio Indise destinatus, multos passim toto Oriente 
Christianos ad meliorem frugem revocavit, et innumeros prope- 
modum populos ignorantiae tenebris involutos ad Christi fidem 
adduxit. Nam preeter Indos, Brachmanes et Malabaras, ipse 
primus Paravis, Malai's, Jai's, Acenis, Mindanais, Molucensibus, 
et Japonibus, multis editis miraculiset exantlatis laboribus Evan- 
gelii lucem intulit. Perlustrata tandem Japonia, ad Sinas pro- 
fecturus, in insula Sanciana obiit. (Vid. his Office in the Pa- 
risian Breviary, 2nd December.) 

The journeys of St. Francis Xavier are related in detail at the 
end of his life by Father Bouhours, and deserve great attention. 
Taken continuously, they are equal to the tour of the globe. He 
died at the age of forty-six. He spent only ten years in accom- 



236 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



Jesuits alone healed one of the greatest wounds of hu- 
manity ? a All has been already said on the missions of 
Paraguay, China, the Indies ; and it would be superfluous 
to return to such well-known subjects. Let it suffice to 
observe, that all the honour is referable to the Holy See. 
" Behold," said the great Leibnitz, with a noble feeling of 
emulation quite worthy of him, " behold China open to the 
J esuits ! The Pope sends thither a number of missionaries. 
We are not sufficiently united to admit of our undertaking 
such great conversions} In the reign of King "William, 
there was formed in England a kind of society, whose object 
was the propagation of the Gospel ; but hitherto it has not 
had much success." c 

Never will it have, and it never can have, any success, 
under whatever name it may act, beyond the pale of Ca- 
tholic unity ; and not only will it not succeed, it will do 
nothing but evil, as has just been acknowledged by a Pro- 
testant authority. 

" Kings," said Bacon, " are really inexcusable in not 
promoting, by means of their power and their riches, the 
propagation of the Christian religion." d 

No doubt they are ; and they are so all the more (I 
speak only of Catholic sovereigns), that, blinded to their 
dearest interests by modern prejudices, they do not under- 
stand that every prince who employs his strength and his 
means in propagating legitimate Christianity, will be infal- 
libly recompensed by great successes, by a long reign, by 
real and lasting fame, or by all these advantages together. 
There is not, there will not be, there cannot be, any excep- 
tion on this point. Constantine, Theodosius, Alfred, Char- 

plishing his prodigious labours, the time Caesar required to sub- 
jugate and devastate Gaul. 
a Montesquieu. 

b Lettre de Leibnitz, citee dans le Journal Hist., Politique, et 
Litteraire de l'Abbe de Feller. Aout, 1774, p. 209. 

c Leibnitzii Epist. ad Kortholtam, dans ses oeuvres in 4to, p. 323. 
— Pensees de Leibnitz, in8vo. torn. i. p. 275. 

d Bacon, in the Dialogue de Bello Sacro. ^Bacon's Christianity, 
torn. ii. p. 274. 



CHAP. II.] CIVIL LIBERTY. 237 

lemagne, St. Louis, Emmanuel of Portugal, Louis XIV., 
and other sovereigns. All the great protectors or propa- 
gators of true Christianity are distinguished in history by 
the marks of Divine favour I have just enumerated. When 
a prince interests himself in the work of God, and promotes 
it by all the means in his power, he may still, no doubt, 
have to pay his tribute of imperfections and misfortune to 
the lamentable weakness of humanity ; but nevertheless 
there will be seen upon his brow a certain sign, which all 
nations will hold in reverence. 

Ilium aget perm a metuente solvi 
Fama superstes. 

Every prince, on the other hand — who, born in light, 
shall despise it, or labour to extinguish it ; and who, above 
all, shall dare to lay hands on the Sovereign Pontiff, or 
grievously afflict him — may count upon some temporal and 
visible chastisement. A short- reign, humbling disasters, a 
violent or disgraceful death, a bad name during life, and a 
tarnished memory after death, are the evil destiny which 
more or less awaits him. From Julian to Philip the Fair, 
examples of more ancient date are written everywhere ; and 
as to recent instances, the wise man who would expose them 
in their true light will do well to wait until time shall have 
given them a more remote position in the page of history. 



CHAPTER II. 

CIVIL LIBERTY OF MANKIND. 

We have seen that the Sovereign Pontiff is the natural 
chief, the most powerful promoter, the great Demiurgus of 
universal civilization ; his powers in this respect have no 
other limits than the blindness or the evil dispositions of 
princes. Nor have the Popes less deserved the gratitude of 
humanity by the extinction of slavery, which they have un- 
ceasingly combated, and which they will infallibly extin- 
guish without violence, without commotions, without 



238 



THE POPE. 



[book in. 



danger, in every place where they shall have liberty to 
exert their influence. It was a singular absurdity of the 
last century to judge everything according to abstract rules, 
without any regard to experience ; and it is all the more 
striking, that the men of that age ceased not. at the same 
time, to exclaim against all the philosophers who began by 
abstract principles, instead of taking counsel with ex- 
perience. 

Rousseau is exquisitely ridiculous, in commencing his 
social contract with the high-sounding maxim : "Man is 
born free, and everywhere he is in chains" 

What does he mean ? He does not, apparently, intend 
to speak of the fact ; as, in the same phrase in which he 
pronounces man free, he afhrnis that he is everywhere in 
fetters. There is question, then, of the right to be free ; 
but this is what ought to have been proved in opposition 

tO THE FACT. 

The opposite of the foolish assertion, man is born free, 
is the truth. At all times and in all places, until the esta- 
blishment of Christianity, and even until this religion had 
sufficiently penetrated into the hearts of men, slavery was 
always considered as something essential to the government 
and political state of nations, in republics as well as mo- 
narchies ; whilst it never came into the head of any phi- 
losopher to say there should not be slaves, nor into that of 
any legislator to attempt their abolition, either by funda- 
mental laws or by such as circumstances might give rise to. 

One of the most profound philosophers of antiquity, 
Aristotle, as is well known, has gone so far as to say that 
there were men who were born slaves ; and there is nothing 
more true. I am aware that in our time he has been 
blamed for this assertion ; but it would have been more to 
the purpose to understand than to criticise him. His posi- 
tion is founded on the whole of history, the politics of expe- 
rience, and on the nature of man, which created history. 

Whoever has studied sufficiently this unfortunate nature, 
knows that man in general, if left to himself, is too wicked 
to be free. Let each one examine the nature of man in 



CHAP. II.] 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 



239 



his own heart, and he will understand that, wherever civil 
liberty shall belong to all alike, there will no longer be any 
means, without extraordinary aid, of governing men as 
national bodies. 

Hence, slavery was constantly the natural state of a very 
great portion of mankind, until the establishment of 
Christianity ; and, as the good sense of man in general 
perceived the necessity of this order of things, it was never 
opposed either by laws or argument. 

A great Latin poet has put into the mouth of fesar the 
terrible maxim : 

" The human race exists only for the good of a 

FEW MEN.'' a 

This maxim, in the sense attributed to it by the poet, 
presents a Machiavelic and revolting aspect ; but, in 
another point of view, it is quite just. Everywhere a very 
small number have ruled the great masses of men ; for, 
without an aristocracy, more or less powerful, sovereignty 
is not sufficiently strong. 

The number of free men in antiquity was much less than 
the number of slaves. In Athens there were forty thou- 
sand slaves, and twenty thousand citizens. 5 At Rome, 
which, towards the end of the republic, counted about 
one million two hundred thousand inhabitants, there were 
scarcely two thousand proprietors, which alone shows the 
immense number of slaves. One individual had sometimes 
several thousands in his serviced There were seen exe- 
cuted, on one occasion, four hundred belonging to one 
house, by virtue of an atrocious law, which required, at 
Rome, that when a Roman citizen was slain in his own 
house, all the slaves who dwelt under the same roof should 
be put to death. 6 And when there was question of giving 

a Humanum paucis vivit genus. — Lucan. Phars. 
b Larcher, on Herodotus, lib. i. note 258. 

c Vix esse duo millia hominum qui rem habeant. — Cicero, de 
Officiis, ii. 21. d Juven. Sat. iii. 140. 

e Tacit. Ann. xiv. 43. The speeches on this subject delivered 
in the senate are exceedingly curious. 



240 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



to the slaves a particular dress, the senate refused, lest it 
should occur to them to count themselves? 

Other nations would furnish almost similar instances, 
but we must abridge. Besides, it would be superfluous to 
prove at length what none are ignorant of, that the world, 
until the time of Christianity, was always covered with 
slaves, and that the sages never blamed the custom. This 
proposition cannot be shaken. 

But at length the Divine law appeared upon the earth. 
It at once took possession of the heart of man, and changed 
it in a manner calculated to excite the never -failing 
admiration of every true observer. Religion, at its very 
commencement, laboured above all things, and unceasingly, 
to abolish slavery ; and this no other religion, no other 
legislator, no other philosopher, had ever ventured to under- 
take, or had ever dreamt of. Christianity, which acted by 
Divine power, for this reason also acted gently and slowly ; 
for all legitimate operations, of whatever kind they may 
be, are always imperceptibly carried on. Wherever there 
is noise, tumult, impetuosity, destruction, &c, it may be 
relied upon that crime or folly is at work. 

Religion, then, gave battle perseveringly to slavery, 
acting sometimes in one place, sometimes in another — 
sometimes in one way, sometimes in another — but without 
ever relaxing its efforts ; and the sovereigns perceiving, 
without being as yet able to account for it, that the priest- 
hood relieved them of a portion of their labours and their 
fears, yielded imperceptibly to their wishes, and aided in 
forwarding their beneficent views. 

" At length, in the year 1167, Pope Alexander III. de- 
clared, in the name of a council, that all Christians ought to 
be exempt from slavery. This law alone ought to render his 
memory dear to all nations, just as his exertions to sustain 
the liberty of Italy must render his name precious to the 
Italians. Long afterwards, by virtue of this law, Louis 
le Hutin declared that all the serfs who still remained in 



a Adam's Roman Antiquities, in 8vo. London, p. -35, et seq. 



CHAP. II.] 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 



241 



France should be emancipated. Nevertheless, men re- 
covered only by degrees, and with very great difficulty, 
their natural right." a 

No doubt, the memory of the Pontiff ought to be dear to 
all nations. It did indeed legitimately belong to his 
sublime quality to take the initiative in making such a 
declaration ; but it must be observed that it was only in 
the twelfth century that he promulgated the declaration, 
and that then even he declared the right to liberty, rather 
than liberty itself. He permitted himself neither violence 
nor threats ; whatever is well done, is never quickly done. 

Wherever there prevails any other religion than the one 
Catholic faith, slavery maintains its ground ; and wherever 
this religion falls into decay, the nation becomes, exactly 
in proportion, less susceptible of liberty in general. 

We have just seen the social state of Europe shaken to 
its foundations, because there was in Europe too much 
liberty, and at the same time not enough of religion. 
There will yet be more commotions, and good order will 
not be thoroughly established until either slavery or religion 
be restored. 

The government alone cannot govern. This maxim will 
appear all the more incontestable the more it is meditated 
upon. All governments require, therefore, as an indispen- 
sable minister, either slavery, which diminishes the number 
of acting wills in the state, or Divine power, which, by a 
sort of spiritual graft, destroys the natural asperity of those 
wills, and enables them to act together without mutual 
injury. 

The New World has furnished an example which com- 
pletes the demonstration. What has not been done by the 
Catholic missionaries, that is, by the envoys of the Pope, 

a Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, &c. ch. lxxxiii. We here find 
Voltaire, tainted with the delusions of his time, preaching the 
natural right of man to liberty. I have some curiosity to know 
how he would have established this right in the face of facts 
which bear incontestable evidence that slaver?/ is the natural state 
of a great portion of the human race, until the time of the super- 
natural enfranchisement. 

E 



242 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



to console, to restore, to ennoble mankind, in those vast 
regions ? 

Wherever this power will be allowed to act, it will pro- 
duce similar results. But let the nations which reject it, 
even though still professing Christianity, beware of abolish- 
ing slavery, if it yet subsist amongst them : a great political 
calamity would inevitably be the consequence of such a 
blind and imprudent measure. 

But it must not be imagined that the Church or the 
Pope — they are all one* — has no other view in declaring 
war on slavery than the political improvement of mankind. 
This power aims at a still higher object — the perfecting of 
morality, of which political perfection is merely an emana- 
tion. Wherever slavery prevails, there can be no true 
morality, because of the inordinate empire of man over 
woman. Although in full possession of her rights, and 
mistress of her actions, she is already too weak against the 
seductions by which she is everywhere surrounded. What 
then must not her position be when her will even can no 
longer defend her ? The very idea of resistance will vanish, 
vice will become a duty, and man, gradually degraded by 
the facility of gratification, will no longer be superior in 
point of morals to the voluptuaries of Asia. 

Mr. Buchanan, whom I have already quoted, and from 
whom I willingly borrow another remark as true as it is 
important, says : "In all the countries where Christianity 
prevails not, there is observable a certain tendency to the 
degradation of woman/' b 

There is nothing more obviously true. It is possible, 
even, to point out the cause of this degradation, which can 
only be combated by a supernatural principle. Wherever 
our sex is able to command vice, there can be no true mo ■ 
rality nor real dignity of manners. Woman, who is all 
powerful over the heart of man, returns to him in full 
measure the perversity she receives at his hands ; and na- 
tions grovel in this vicious circle, out of which it is im- 

a Sup. liv. i. p. 34. 

b Christian Researches in Asia, &c. by the Rev. Claudius Bu- 
chanan, D.D. London, 1812, p. 56. 



CHAP. II.] 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 



243 



possible for them to escape by any strength inherent in 
themselves. 

By an operation quite contrary to this, and also quite 
natural, the most effectual means of improving man is to 
raise and ennoble woman. Towards this end, Christianity 
alone tends and labours without ceasing, and with infallible 
success — success which is only limited more or less, accord- 
ing to the kind and number of the obstacles which may 
thwart its action. But this immense and sacred power of 
Christianity is null when it is no longer concentrated in 
one hand, which shall wield it and render it available. In 
this respect, Christianity, disseminated over the globe, is in 
the same position as a nation which has no existence, nor 
action, nor power, nor consideration, nor even a name, ex- 
cept through the sovereignty which represents it, and gives 
it a moral personality among the peoples of the earth. 

Woman is more indebted than man to the Christian faith. 
She derives from it all her dignity. The Christian woman 
is really a supernatural being, inasmuch as she is raised 
and upheld by religion in a state that is not natural to her. 
But by what immense services does she not pay for being 
thus ennobled ! 

The great bulk of mankind is, then, naturally in a state 
of serfdom, from which it cannot be extricated otherwise 
than through supernatural means. Together with slavery, 
there can be no real morality ; without Christianity, no ge- 
neral liberty ; and without the Pope, no true Christianity — 
in other words, no operating, powerful, converting, regene- 
rating, conquering, improving Christianity. It belonged, 
therefore, to the Sovereign Pontiff to proclaim universal 
liberty ; he has done so, and his voice has resounded 
throughout the world. This liberty became possible only 
through him in his character of unique chief of that reli- 
gion which is alone equal to the work of moderating the 
wills of men, and which could not without him exert the 
full measure of its power. At the present time, one must 
be blind not to see that all the sovereignties of Europe are 
growing weak. They are losing on all hands the confidence 
and the love of mankind. Sects, and modes of thought 



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[BOOK III. 



peculiar to each individual, are increasing to an alarming 
extent. The wills of men must be either purified or en- 
chained ; there is no medium. The dissenting princes in 
whose states slavery prevails must preserve it or perish. 
All others will return either to slavery or unity. . . . 

But what assurance have I that I shall be in life to- 
morrow ? To-day, therefore, I would write a thought which 
occurs to me on the subject of slavery, even though I 
should wander from the matter in hand ; which, however, I 
do not think I shall have done. 

What is the religious state in Catholic countries ? So 
to speak, an ennobled serfdom. To the ancient institution 
itself, so useful in many respects, this state adds a number 
of particular advantages, and removes it from all abuses. 
The vow of religion, instead of degrading man, sanctifies 
him. Instead of enslaving him to the vices of others, it 
emancipates him from them. In subjecting him to an 
elected superior, it declares him free in regard to other men, 
with whom he can no longer have any transaction. 

As often as the wills of men can be subdued without de- 
grading the individual, an inestimable service is rendered 
to society in relieving the government of the care of watch- 
ing over these men, of employing, and especially of paying 
them. Never was there a more happy idea than that of 
uniting in one body a number of peaceful citizens, who 
labour, pray, study, write, give alms, cultivate the ground, 
and ask nothing of authority. 

This truth is particularly apparent in our days, when 
from all quarters men are throwing themselves upon the 
resources of the government, which knows not how to dis- 
pose of them. 

Our youth, impetuous, innumerable, unfortunately for 
itself, without restraint, ambitious of distinctions and of 
wealth, crowd into the career of public employments. 
There are four or five times more candidates than is neces- 
sary for every imaginable profession. You will not find an 
office in Europe in which the number of persons employed 
has not tripled or quadrupled within fifty years. Public 
business, it is said, has increased ; but men create all this 



CHAP. III.] 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 



245 



business, and too many interfere in it. All, at the same 
time, hasten towards power and the duties therewith con- 
nected ; they forcibly open every door, and necessitate the 
creation of new places ; there is too much liberty, too much 
movement, too many wills let loose in the world. A mob 
of fools have inquired, Of what use are religious people? 
How then ! may not men serve the Church without being 
invested with a charge ? And is the advantage of chaining 
up the passions and neutralizing vice of no consideration ? 
If Robespierre, instead of being an advocate, had been a 
Capuchin, it would have been said of him, too, as he passed 
by, Heavens I of what use is that man? Hundreds and 
hundreds of writers have pointed out, in the clearest man- 
ner, the numerous services the religious state has rendered 
to society ; but I think it advantageous to make it be con- 
sidered in the point of view that has been hitherto least 
attended to, and which, assuredly, was not the least im- 
portant — as master and director of a multitude of wills — as 
an invaluable supplement to government, whose greatest 
interest it is to moderate the internal movement, of the 
state, and to increase the number of men who have nothing 
to ask of it. 

To-day, thanks to the system of universal independence, 
and to the infinite pride which has taken possession of all 
classes, every man would fight, judge, write, administer, 
govern. We lose ourselves in the whirlwind of affairs ; we 
groan under the crushing weight of writings ; one half the 
world is busy governing the other, but without success in 
their employment. 



CHAPTER III. 

INSTITUTION OF THE PRIESTHOOD CELIBACY OF PRIESTS. 

I.— ANCIENT TRADITIONS. 

There is no dogma in the Catholic Church, there is no 
general custom even, belonging to mere discipline, that may 
not trace its origin to the profoundest depths of human 



246 



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[BOOK III. 



nature, and consequently to some universal opinion, more 
or less altered here and there, but common, nevertheless, in 
its principle, to all peoples and to all times. 

The development of this proposition would furnish matter 
for an interesting work. It will scarcely be a digression 
from my subject to give a single example of this wonderful 
relation ; I shall seek this example in confession, solely in 
order that I may be better understood. 

What is there more natural to man than that impulse 
which inclines one soul towards another, in order to com- 
municate a secret ? a The wretched man who is distracted 
by remorse or by chagrin has need of a friend, a confidant, 
who shall listen to him, console him, and sometimes direct 
him. The stomach which contains poison, and which is 
spontaneously convulsed in order to eject it, is the natural 
image of a heart into which crime has poured its poisons. 
It suffers, it is agitated, it is contracted, until it has found 
the ear of friendship, or at least that of benevolence. 

But when, from confidential communication, we pass to 
confession, and the avowal is made to authority, the con- 
science of mankind recognizes in this spontaneous confes- 
sion an expiatory power and a meriting of grace ; there is 
but one sentiment on this point, from the mother who 
questions her child in regard to a piece of broken china, or 
some sweetmeats partaken of contrary to orders, to the 
judge who, from the height of his tribunal, interrogates 
the robber and the assassin. 

Frequently, too, the guilty man, urged by his conscience, 
refuses the impunity he might have hoped for by keeping 
silence. I know not what mysterious instinct, stronger 
even than that of preservation, makes him seek the punish- 
ment he has it in his power to avoid. Even in cases in 
which he has not to dread either witnesses or torture, he 
cries out, " Yes, it is I ! " And reference might be 
made to merciful legislators, which, in such cases, confide 
to magistrates of the highest order the power to mitigate 

a An admirable expression of Bossuet (Oraison Funebre 
d'Henriette d'Angleterre). La Harpe has justly extolled it in 
his Lvcaeum. 



CHAP. III.] 



CONFESSION. 



247 



the punishment, even without having recourse to the 
sovereign. 

" We cannot refuse to recognize, in the simple acknow- 
ledgment of our faults, independently of all supernatural 
ideas, something which tends in the highest degree to 
establish in man uprightness of heart and simplicity of 
conduct/' a Moreover, as it is of the nature of every 
crime to be a reason for committing another, every spon- 
taneous avowal is, on the contrary, a source of correction ; 
it preserves the guilty person alike from falling into 
despair and from becoming hardened in evil, it being 
impossible that crime should be harboured in the human 
breast without conducting to both the one and the other of 
these two abysses. 

" Do you know," said Seneca, " why we conceal our 
vices ? Because we are buried in them : whenever we 
confess them, we are healed." b 

We can fancy we hear Solomon saying to the guilty, 
" Whoever conceals his sins will be lost ; but he who con- 
fesses them, and relinquishes them, shall obtain mercy." c 

All the legislators in the world have acknowledged these 
truths, and have acted on them for the benefit of mankind. 

First of all, Moses establishes, in his code of laws, a 
distinct and even public confession. d 

The ancient legislator of the Indies said, " The more a 
man confesses sin he has committed, truly and willingly, 
the more he disencumbers himself of that sin, as a serpent 
divests itself of its old skin." e 

The same ideas having prevailed in every place, and at 
all times, confession has been found among all the peoples 
who had received the Eleusinian mysteries. It was met 

a Berthier on the Psalms, torn. i. Ps. xxxi. 
. b Quare sua vitia nemo confitetur % quia in illis etiamnum est ; 
vitia sua confiteri, sanitatis indicium est. — Sen. Epist. Mor. liii. 
c Prov. xxviii. 13. 

d Levit. v. 5, 15, and 18 ; vi. 6 ; Num. v. 6, 7. 

e He adds immediately after : " But if the sinner desires to ob- 
tain a full remission of his sin, let him particularly avoid falling 
anew ! ! ! " — Laws of Menu, son of Brahma, in the works of Sir 
William Jones, in 4to. torn. iii. ch. xi. Nos. 64 and 233. 



248 



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[BOOK III. 



with in Peru, among the Brahmins and the Turks, in 
Thibet, and in Japan. a 

On this, as on all other points, what has Christianity 
done ? It has revealed to man the knowledge of himself ; 
it has taken possession of his inclinations, of his lasting 
and universal convictions ; it has laid bare to the light 
these ancient foundations ; it has cleansed them of every 
stain, of every alien mixture ; it has honoured them with 
the impress of Divinity ; and on these natural bases it has 
erected its supernatural theory of penance and sacramental 
confession. 

What I say of penance I might likewise say of all the 
other dogmas of Catholic Christianity ; but let one example 
suffice. And I trust that in this kind of introduction the 
reader will find a natural transition to the subject I now 
proceed to discuss. 

The opinion is held alike by men of all times, all places, 
and all religions, that there is in continency something 
heavenly, which exalts man, and renders him agreeable to 
the Divinity ; and that, by a necessary consequence, every 
sacerdotal function, every religious act, every sacred cere- 
mony, is but little, if at all, in accordance with the state of 
marriage. 

There is no legislation in the world that has not re- 
strained the priesthood in some way, and which, even in 
regard to other men, has not accompanied prayers, sacri- 
fices, and solemn ceremonies, with some abstinence of this 
kind, and more or less severe. 

The Hebrew priest could not espouse a woman that had 
been repudiated, and the high priest could not even marry 
a widow. b The Thalmud adds, that he could not have two 
wives, although polygamy was allowed to the rest of the 
people ; c and all were required to be clean when they en- 
tered the sanctuary. 

a Carli, Lettere Americane, torn. i. lett. xix. Extrait des 
Voyages d'Effremoff, dans le Journal du Nord, St. Petersbourg, 
Mai, 1807, No. 18, p. 335. Feller, Catech. Philosoph. torn. iii. 
No. 501, &c. 

b Levit. xxi. 7, 9, 13. c Talm. in Masechet Joraa. 



CHAP. III.] 



CELIBACY. 



249 



The Egyptian priests likewise had but one wife. a The 
hierophant among the Greeks was obliged to observe celi- 
bacy and the strictest continency. b 

Origen informs us what means the hierophant had re- 
course to in order that he might be able to keep his vow. c 
Thus did antiquity distinctly acknowledge both the high 
importance of continency for sacerdotal functions, and the 
weakness of human nature when unsupported by any other 
than its mere natural strength. 

The priests in Ethiopia as well as Egypt lived in seclu- 
sion, and observed celibacy. d 

And Virgil attributes glory in the Elysian fields to the 
priest who had always remained chaste. 6 

The priestesses of Ceres at Athens, where the laws as- 
signed to them the highest importance, were chosen by the 
people, supported at the public expense, consecrated for 
their whole lifetime to the worship of the goddess, and 
obliged to live in the most austere continency/ 

Behold what in ancient times was thought throughout 
the whole known world. Many centuries later we find the 
same ideas prevalent in Peru. g 

a Phil, apud P. Cunaeum de Repub. Hebr. Elzevir, in 16mo. 
p. 190. 

b Potter's Greek Antiquities, torn. i. p. 183, 356. Lettres sur 
l'Hist. torn. ii. p. 571. 

c Contra Celsum, cap. vii. No. 48. Vid. Diosc. lib. iv. cap. 79 ; 
Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xxxv. cap. 13. 

d Bryant's Mythology explained, in 4to. torn. i. p. 281 ; torn. iii. 
p. 240, after Diodorus Siculus. Porphyr. de Abstin. lib. iv. p. 364. 

e " Quique sacerdotes casti dum vita manebat." — Virg. Mm vi. 
661. Heyne, who perceived in this line the formal condemnation 
of a dogma of Gottingue, annexed to it the following precious 
note : " This is to be understood," he says, " of the priests who 
have performed their functions caste pure ac pie (that is scrupu- 
lously) during their life. Understood in this way, Virgil is not 
reprehensible. Ita nihil est quod reprehendas." — London, 
1793, in 8vo. torn. ii. p. 741. If, therefore, one happens to say 
that such a shoemaker, for instance, is chaste, it signifies, according 
to Heyne, that he makes shoes well. But I would not be under- 
stood, from this remark, to fail in respect to so illustrious a man. 

f Lettres sur l'Histoire, a l'endroit cite, p. 577. 

* Carli, Lett. Amer. torn. i. liv. xix. 



250 



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[BOOK III. 



What value and what honours have not all the nations 
of the universe assigned to virginity ! Although marriage 
be the natural state of man in general, and even a holy 
state, according to an opinion equally general, we find, 
nevertheless, constantly manifested everywhere a certain 
respect for the virgin ; she is considered a superior being ; 
and when she loses this quality even legitimately, she 
appears, one would say, to be degraded. In Greece, women 
when betrothed owed a sacrifice to Diana, in expiation of 
this species of profanation. 3 The law had established at 
Athens particular mysteries relative to this religious cere- 
mony. 5 The women held to them tenaciously, and dreaded 
the anger of the goddess, if they had neglected to conform 
to them. c 

Virgins consecrated to God are to be found among every 
people, and at every epoch of the history of mankind. 
What is there of greater celebrity in the world than the 
Vestals ? Together with the worship of Vesta, flourished 
the Roman Empire, with that worship it fell. d 

In the temple of Minerva at Athens the sacred fire was 
preserved, as at Rome, by virgins. 

These same Vestals have been met with in other nations ; 
for instance, in the Indies 6 and in Pern, where it is very 
remarkable that the violation of the vow was punished in 
the same way as at Rome/ Virginity was considered a 

a E71-1 d0o<xiw<7« rrjg 7rap6eviag. Vid. the Scholiast of Theocri- 
tus on the 66th verse of the 11th idyl. 

b Td de /xvcFrripia ravra A9rjvr](nv TroKiTtvovrai. — Ibid. 

c Every man who knows ancient manners will not inquire 
without surprise what the feeling was which led to the establish- 
ment of such mysteries, and which possessed power to convince 
men of their importance. Its origin must be somewhere ; but, 
humanly speaking, where? 

d These remarkable words terminate the Memoir of the Vestals, 
which we find among those of the Academy of Inscriptions and 
Belles Lettres, torn. x. in 12mo. par l'Abbe Naudal. 

e Vid. the Herodotus of Larcher, torn. vi. p. 133 ; Carli, Lett. 
Amer. torn. i. let. v. and torn. i. let. xxvi. p. 458 ; Not. Procop. 
lib. ii. De Bello Pers. 

f Carli, ibid. torn. i. lett. viii. The translator of Carli assures 
us that the punishment of the Vestals at Rome was only pre- 



CHAP. III.] 



CELIBACY. 



251 



sacred state, equally agreeable to the emperor and the 
Divinity. a 

In the Indies, the law of Menu declares that all the 
ceremonies prescribed for marriages concern only the virgin, 
the bride who is not such being excluded from all legal 
ceremony. b 

The voluptuous legislator of Asia has said, nevertheless, 
" The disciples of Jesus observed virginity, although it was 
not commanded, because of their desire to please God. c The 
daughter of Josaphat preserved her virginity ; God commu- 
nicated his spirit to her ; she believed the words of her 
Lord and the Scriptures. She was of the number of those 
icho obey." d 

Whence comes this universal opinion ? Where did 
Numa learn, that in order to render his Vestals holy and 
venerable, it was necessary to enjoin them virginity ? e 

Why does Tacitus, anticipating the style of our theolo- 
gians, write about the venerable Occia, who had presided 
over the community of Vestals during fifty-seven years with 
eminent sanctity ? f 

And whence arose the general persuasion among the 
Romans, " that, if a vestal availed herself of the permission 
accorded her by the law, to marry after thirty years' seclu- 
sion, marriages of this sort were never happy ? g 

If from Rome we transfer our thoughts to China, we 

tended, and that not one of them remained in the vault (torn. i. 
lett. ix. p. 114, note). But he does not quote any authority. 
a Carli, ibid. torn. i. liv. ix. 

b Laws of Menu, ch. viii. No. 226. Works of Sir William 
Jones, torn. iii. 

c Alcoran, ch. lvii. v. 27. 
d Ibid. ch. lxvi. v. 13 (12). 

e Virginitate aliisque caeremoniis venerabiles ac sanctas fecit. 
—Tit. Liv. i. 29. 

f Occia quse septem et quinquaginta per annos summa sancti- 
monia vestalibus sacris preesederat. — Tacit. Ann. ii. 86. 

s Etsi antiquitus observation infaustas fere et parum hetabiles 
eas nuptias fuisse. — Just. Lips. Syntagma de Vest. cap. vi. It is 
proper to observe that Justus Lipsius relates this without 
doubting. 



252 



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[BOOK III. 



shall there find religious persons subjected in like manner 
to virginity. Their houses are ornamented with inscrip- 
tions which they hold of the emperor himself, who only 
grants this prerogative to such as have continued virgins 
till their fortieth year. a 

There are religious men and religious women among the 
Mexicans, as well as in China. b What an agreement be- 
tween nations differing from each other so widely in man- 
ners, in character, language, religion, and climate ! 

Next after virginity, widowhood has enjoyed everywhere 
the respect of men, and, what is very remarkable, in all the 
eulogiums bestowed upon this state by writers of every de- 
scription, we do not find that there is question of the inte- 
rest of the children, which is nevertheless obvious. 

The opinion prevalent among the Hebrew people as to 
the importance of marriage and the disgrace of sterility is 
well known ; according to their views, the first blessing was 
that of the perpetuity of families. Why, then, for instance, 
those high commendations bestowed on Judith, for having 
added chastity to fortitude — -for having spent one hundred 
and five years in the house of Manasseh her husband, with- 
out having given him a successor? All the people whom 
she saved sang to her in chorus, " Thou art the joy and 
honour of our people, for thou hast acted with manly 
courage, and thy heart has been strengthened because thou 
hast loved chastity, and after thy husband hast not known 
any other." c 

What, then ! does the woman who contracts a second 
marriage sin against chastity ? Assuredly not. But if she 
prefer widowhood, her conduct will be praised throughout 
all time and in every quarter of the globe, notwithstanding 
all prejudices to the contrary. 

In India the law excludes from collateral succession the 
son sprung from the marriage of a widow. Among the 

a M. de Guignes, Voyage a Pekin, &c. in 8vo. torn. ii. p. 279. 
b Idem, torn. ii. p. 367, 368. M. de Humboldt, Vue des Cor- 
dilieres, &c. in 8vo. Paris, 1816, torn. i. pp. 237, 238. 
c Judith xv. 10, 11 ; xvi. 26. 



CHAP. III.] 



CELIBACY. 



253 



Hottentots, the woman who marries anew is obliged to cut 
off one of her fingers. 

Among the Romans, even after the ancient manners had 
almost entirely disappeared, the same honour was paid to 
widowhood, the same dislike shown to second marriages. 
We find the widow of an emperor, when wooed by another, 
declaring that it would be without example and inexcus- 
able, that a woman of her name and rank should attempt a 
second marriage* 

China thinks as Rome did. Honourable widowhood is 
there venerated to such a degree, that triumphal arches are 
found erected to preserve the memory of women who had 
remained widows. b 

The estimable traveller who informs us of this custom, 
indulges afterwards in philosophical reflections upon what 
appears to him a great contradiction of the human mind : 
" How does it happen" (these are his words) " that the 
Chinese, who consider it unfortunate to die without issue, 
honour at the same time the celibacy of women ? What 
agreement can be discovered between such incompatible 
ideas ? But such are men/' &c. 

He recites to us, alas i the litanies of the eighteenth 
century ; and, indeed, it is not easy to escape being led 
astray by them. There is by no means question of the 
contradictions of the human mind — there being no contra- 
diction whatever. The nations which favour population 
and honour continency are perfectly at one with themselves 
and with sound sense. 

But, leaving aside the problem of population, which, 
however, has ceased to be a problem, I return to what has 
always been a dogma of the human race — That there is 

a There is question here of Valeria, widow of Maximian, whom 
Maximiu desired to obtain in marriage. She replied : " Nefas 
esse illius nominis ac loci feminam sine more, sine exemplo, 
maritum alterum experiri. — Lact. de Mort. Persecut. cap. xxxix 
It would be quite useless to say, it was only a pretext, since the 
pretext would have been founded on manners and opinion. Now, 
it is precisely manners and opinion there is question of. 

b M. de Guignes, Voyage a Pekin, torn. ii. p. 183. 



254 



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[BOOK III. 



nothing more pleasing to the Divinity than continency; and 
that not only every sacerdotal function, as we have seen, but 
every sacrifice, every prayer, every religious act, required 
preparations more or less conformable to this virtue. Such 
was the universal opinion of the ancient world. The navi- 
gators of the fifteenth century having, if I may so speak, 
doubled the globe, the same opinions were found to prevail 
in the new hemisphere. Is not that idea natural, which is 
common to nations differing so widely, and which never had 
any point of contact ? Does it not necessarily belong to 
the spiritual essence, that constitutes us what we are? 
Where then would man have found it, if it were not in- 
nate ? a 

And this theory will appear all the more divine in its 
principle, the more strikingly it contrasts with the practical 
morality of antiquity, which was corrupt to excess, and 
which involved mankind in every species of disorder, with- 
out ever having been able to obliterate from his mind laws 
written in divine characters} 

A learned English geographer has remarked, in regard 
to Oriental manners, " Little account is made of chastity 
in the countries of the East/' c Now, these Eastern man- 
ners are precisely the manners of antiquity, and will always 
be the manners of every country where Christianity prevails 
not. All who have studied them in the classic authors, 
and in certain monuments of art which remain, will have 
found that there is no exaggeration in the assertion of 
Feller, " that half a century of Paganism presents an infi- 
nitely greater number of enormous excesses than would be 
found in all Christian monarchies from the time that Chris- 
tianity first obtained sway in the world." d 

And, nevertheless, in the midst of this deep-rooted and 

a Or revealed, the editor of the French edition very properly 
adds. — Edition Charpentier, Paris, 1843, p. 343. 

b rpafxfiam Oeov. — Orig. adv. Cels. lib. i. ch. v. 

c Pinkerton, torn. v. of the French translation, p. 5. In this 
passage, the author describes the line of demarcation between the 
Alcoran and the Gospel. 

d Catech. Philos. torn. iii. ch. vi. sect. 1. 



CHAP. III.] 



CELIBACY. 



255 



universal corruption, there is seen floating, as it were on the 
sea of iniquity, a truth not less universal, and, considering 
the state of morality, wholly inexplicable. 

At Rome, and under the emperors, great personages, 
Pollio and Agrippa, contend for the honour of presenting a 
vestal to the state. The daughter of Pollio is preferred, 
solely because her mother had never belonged to any other 
than the same husband, whilst on the other hand Agrippa 
had damaged his house by a divorce.* 

Was there ever anything so extraordinary ? Where did 
the Romans of that age meet with the idea of the integrity 
of marriage, and that of the natural alliance between chas- 
tity and the altar ? Where did they learn that a maiden, 
daughter of a divorced man, although born in lawful wed- 
lock and personally irreproachable, was, notwithstanding, 
damaged for the altar ? These ideas must spring from a 
principle natural to man, as ancient as man, and, so to 
speak, a portion of his being. 

II. — DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 

Thus, then, the whole world has never ceased to bear 
witness to these great truths : 1st, The eminent merit of 
chastity; 2nd, The natural alliance of continency with all 
religious functions, but particularly with those of the priest- 
hood. 

Christianity, therefore, in imposing on priests the law of 
celibacy, has only availed itself of a natural idea ; it has 
disencumbered this idea of all error, given to it a divine sanc- 
tion, and converted it into a law of the highest discipline. 
But against this Divine law human nature was too strong, 
and could only be overcome by the inflexible and all-con- 
quering power of the Sovereign Pontiffs. In barbarous 
ages, above all, nothing less would have sufficed to save the 
priesthood than the hand of Gregory VII. Without this 
extraordinary man, all was lost, humanly speaking. The 

a Praelata est Pollionis filia, non ob aliud quam quod mater 
ejus in eodem conjugio manebat. Nam Agrippa discidio domum 
imminuerat. — Tacit. Ann. ii. 86. 



256 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



immense power he exercised in his time is complained of ; 
as well might men complain of God himself, who gave him 
that strength, without which he could not have acted as he 
did. The powerful legislator obtained all it was possible to 
obtain of rebellious elements ; and his successors applied to 
the great work with such perseverance, that they succeeded 
at last in establishing the priesthood upon immoveable 
foundations. 

I am far from exaggerating, and wishing to speak of the 
law of celibacy as a dogma, properly so called ; but I hold 
that it belongs to the highest discipline, that it is of unri- 
valled importance, and that we cannot be too grateful to 
the Sovereign Pontiff to whom we are indebted for having 
maintained it. 

The priest who belongs to a wife and children, belongs no 
longer to his flock, or does not sufficiently belong to it. An 
essential faculty is always wanting to him, — that of giving 
alms, of exercising charity without sometimes considering 
too narrowly his own means. In thinking of his children, 
the married priest dares not follow the impulses of his heart ; 
his purse is tied up against indigence, which has nothing 
to expect at his hands but cold exhortations. Moreover, 
the dignity of the priest would be mortally wounded by 
certain kinds of ridicule. The wife of a superior magistrate 
who should manifestly forget her duties would do more 
harm to her husband than the wife of any other man. And 
why ? Because the higher magistracies possess a kind of 
holy and venerable dignity, by which they resemble the 
priesthood. What would it not be, then, in regard to the 
priesthood itself? 

Not only do the vices of the wife reflect great discredit 
on the character of the married priest, but the latter, in his 
turn, escapes not the danger common to all men engaged in 
the married state — that of living criminally. The multi- 
tude of reasoners who have treated the great question of 
ecclesiastical celibacy, always found upon the notable so- 
phism, that marriage is a state of purity, whilst in reality 
it is clean only to the clean. How many marriages are 
irreproachable before God ? Infinitely few. The man who 



CHAP. III.] DIGNITY OP THE PRIESTHOOD. 257 

is blameless in the eyes of the world may be infamous at 
the altar. If human weakness or perversity establishes a 
conventional toleration in regard to certain abuses, this 
toleration, which is itself an abuse, is never suited to the 
priest, because the conscience of mankind ceases not to 
compare it with the type of sacerdotal perfection it contem- 
plates within itself ; so that it makes no allowance for the 
copy, whenever it ceases to be like the pattern. 

In Christianity there is much that is high and sublime ; 
between the priest and his people there are relations so holy 
and so delicate, that they can only belong to men absolutely 
superior to other men. Confession alone requires celibacy. 
Never will women — and they must be particularly consi- 
dered in regard to this point — give their full confidence to 
a married priest. But it is not easy to write on this 
subject. 

The churches so unfortunately separated from the centre 
of unity were not wanting in conscience, but in strength, 
when they sanctioned the marriage of priests. They con- 
demn themselves by excepting bishops, and by refusing to 
consecrate priests before they are married. 

Thus do they acknowledge the rule that no priest can 
marry; but they admit that, by toleration and for want 
of subjects, a married lay person may be ordained. By a 
species of sophistry which from custom no longer offends, 
instead of ordaining a candidate although married, they 
marry him in order that he may be ordained; so that in 
violating the ancient rule they distinctly bear witness 
to it. 

In order to know the consequences of this fatal disci- 
pline, one must have been in a position to examine them 
closely. The abject state of the priesthood in the countries 
where it prevails, cannot be understood by those who have 
not witnessed it. De Tott, in his Memoirs, has not said 
too much on this point. Who could believe, that, in a 
country where the excellence of the marriage of priests is 
seriously maintained, the epithet, son of a priest, is a for- 
mal insult ? Details on this matter would be highly pi- 
quant, and in some respects even useful ; but it is painful 

s 



258 



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[BOOK III. 



to amuse malice and to afflict an unfortunate order, which 
contains, although everything be against it, most estimable 
men, as far as it is possible to form a judgment of them at 
the distance at which inexorable opinion holds them from 
all distinguished society. 

Seeking always, as far as is practicable, my arms in the 
camps of the enemy, I shall not pass over in silence the 
striking testimony of the same Russian prelate I have 
already quoted. We shall see what he thought of the dis- 
cipline of his Church on the point of celibacy. This testi- 
mony bears with it all the weight we can possibly look for, 
as it not only comes to us recommended by the name of its 
author, but issues even from the presses of the Holy Synod. 

After having repelled, in the first chapter of his Prole- 
gomena, an indecent attack of Mosheim, the Archbishop 
de Twer continues in the following words : — 

" I believe, then, that marriage was never allowed to the 
doctors of the Church (the priests), except in cases of ne- 
cessity, and of great necessity ; when, for instance, the sub- 
jects who present themselves, in order to fulfil those func- 
tions, not having fortitude to deny themselves marriage, 
which they desire, better and more worthy cannot be found; 
so that the Church, after these incontinent persons have 
taken wives to themselves, admits them to holy orders by 
accident rather than by choice/' a 

Who would not be struck by this decision of a man in 
such a favourable position for examining minutely what 
he treats of, and so hostile, besides, to the Catholic system ? 

a Q,uo quidem cognito non erit difficile intellectu, an et quo- 
modo doctoribus Ecclesiae permissa sint conjugia. Scilicet, mea 
quidem sententia, non permissa unquam, prssterquam si neces- 
sitas obvenerit, eaque magna ; uti sicut ii (sic) qui ad hoc munus 
praesto sunt ab usu matrimonii temperare sibi nequeant atque 
hoc expetant, meliores vero dignioresque desint : ideoque Ecclesia 
tales intemperantes, postquam uxores duxerint, casu potiiis 
non delectu, sacro ordini adsciscat. — Met. Arch. Twer, liber his- 
toricus, &c. prol. ch. i. p. 6. 

It must be observed that the archbishop speaks always in the 
present tense, and that he obviously has in view the customs of 
his own Church, such as he beheld them in his time. This Greek 
oracle will no doubt appear — ILoWbJv avra'tiog aWwv. 



CHAP. III.] DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 259 

Although it would have cost me too much to dwell at 
length on the consequences of the contrary system, I can- 
not, however, avoid insisting. on the absolute nullity of that 
priesthood, in its relation with the conscience of man. That- 
wonderful influence which checked Theodosius at the en- 
trance of the church, Attila at the gates of .Borne, and 
Louis XIV. before the holy table ; that power, still more 
wonderful, which can soften the heart of the hardened 
sinner, and restore it to life ; which enters palaces, and 
brings from thence the gold of the affluent — let them be 
never so unfeeling or distracted — to pour it into the lap 
of indigence ; which encounters and surmounts all diffi- 
culties, whenever there is question of consoling, of en- 
lightening, of saving a soul ; — which speaks gently but 
irresistibly to consciences, discovers their fatal secrets, to 
pluck out, together with them, the very roots of vice ; the 
organ and guardian of holy unions ; the ever-active enemy 
of every species of licentiousness ; mild, without weak- 
ness ; terrible, but loving ; invaluable supplement of rea- 
son, of probity, of honour, of all the powers of man, at the 
moment they declare themselves powerless ; precious and 
inexhaustible source of reconciliation, of reparations,' of 
restitutions, of efficacious repentance, of all that God most 
loves after innocence itself; at his post by the cradle of 
man, dispensing benedictions ; and still at his post when 
standing near his death-bed, he says to him, in the midst 
of the most pathetic exhortations and the most affectionate 
adieus, " Depart, Christian soul/' . . . This super- 
natural power is nowhere to be found apart from unity. I 
have studied leisurely such Christianity as exists beyond 
this Divine pale. Its priesthood is powerless, and trembles 
before those whom it ought to inspire with salutary dread. 
To him who comes to say, " / have stolen," it dares not 
say, " Restore." The most abominable sinner owes it no 
promise ; the priest is employed like a machine. We 
might suppose that his words are a kind of mechanical 
operation for effacing sins, as material stains are made 
to disappear by the application of soap ; but, in order to 
appreciate, one must have witnessed such a state of things. 

s 2 



260 



THE POPE. 



[book nr 



The moral state of the man who has recourse to the mi- 
nistry of the priest is so indifferent in those countries, 
and is made so little account of, that it is quite common 
to hear people ask one another in conversation: "Haw 
you been to your Easter devotions ? " This is a question 
like any other, to which the ready answer is yes or no, 
as if it were merely the case of a walk or a visit, which 
depends entirely on the will of him who goes to walk or 
to see his friends. 

Women, in their relations with this priesthood, cannot 
fail to be an object of notice to all observers. 

The curse is inevitable. Every married priest will al- 
ways fall below his character. The incontestable supe- 
riority of the Catholic clergy depends entirely a on the law 
of celibacy. 

The learned authors of the British Library have ven- 
tured on a startling assertion in regard to this subject, 
which requires to be quoted and examined. 

" If the ministers of the Catholic worship," say they, 
" had more generally possessed the spirit of their state, 
in the true sense of the word, attacks against religion 
would not have proved so successful. . . . Fortunately 
for the cause of religion, of morals, and the happiness of 
a numerous population, the English clergy, whether An- 
glican or Presbyterian, is far otherwise respectable, and it 
presents not to the enemies of public worship either the 
same reasons or the same pretexts." b 

One might search a thousand volumes and not meet 
with anything so rash ; it only furnishes, however, a new 
proof of the terrible sway of prejudice over some of the 
ablest minds, and some of the most estimable men. 

In the first place, I am at a loss to know in what way 
the comparison is at all applicable ; it can have no foun- 
dation whatever, unless priesthood be opposed to priest- 
hood. Now, there is no longer any priesthood in the Pro- 

a Uniquement. It is to be regretted, this word cannot be trans- 
lated by " in a great measure," or " in a high degree." 

b Biblioth. Britann. on the Inquirer of Mr. Godwin, March, 
1798, No. 53, p. 282. 



CHAP. III.] DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 



261 



testant Churches ; the priest has disappeared together with 
the sacrifice ; and it is very remarkable, that wherever the 
Reformation was established, language, the unerring inter- 
preter of conscience, immediately abolished the word priest, 
insomuch that, so early as the time of Bacon, this word 
was taken for a kind of insult. a When, therefore, there 
is mention of the clergy of England, Scotland, &c, the 
expression is not correct ; for there is no longer clergy 
when there are no longer clergymen ; just as the military 
state no longer exists when there are no military. The 
comparison, therefore, is quite as good as if the parish 
priests of France and Italy had been compared to the bar- 
risters or medical practitioners of England and Scotland. 

But in giving to this word clergy all possible latitude, 
and holding it to be applicable to every body of ministers 
of a Christian worship, the immense superiority of the 
Catholic clergy, in merit as well as in consideration, is as 
evident as the light of the sun. 

It may even be observed that these two kinds of supe- 
riority resolve into one ; for as regards a body such as the 
Catholic clergy, great consideration is inseparable from 
great merit ; and, what is very remarkable, this considera- 
tion is attributed to it, even in separated nations ; for con- 
science awards it, and conscience is an incorruptible judge. 

Even the censures that are addressed to the Catholic 
priesthood prove their superiority. Voltaire admirably says : 
" The life of secular men has always been more vicious than 
that of priests ; but the disorders of the latter have always 
been more remarkable, from their contrast with the rule/' b 

Nothing is forgiven them, because everything is ex- 
pected of them. 

The same rule obtains from the Sovereign Pontiff to the 
sacristan. Every member of the Catholic clergy is con- 

a " I think that the use of the word priest ought not to be con- 
tinued, particularly in cases in which the persons to whom it is 
applied take offence at it." (Bacon, Works, torn. iv. p. 472. 
Christianity of Bacon, torn. ii. p. 241.) The advice of Bacon has 
been followed. In the English language, and conversation, the 
word priest is scarcely to be found, except in priestcraft. 

b Volt. Essai sur les Mceurs, &c. in 8vo. torn. iii. ch. cxii. 



262 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK lit 



stantly confronted with his ideal character, and conse- 
quently judged without mercy. His peccadilloes, even, are 
grievous misdeeds ; whilst, on the other side, crimes are only 
slight offences, quite the same as among people of the 
world. What is a minister of the "reformed" worship? 
A man clothed in black, who ascends a pulpit every Sun- 
day, to deliver a polite discourse. Every honest man may 
succeed in this profession, and it excludes no weakness of 
the honest man. I have narrowly examined this class of 
men ; above all, I have interrogated, in regard to these 
evangelical ministers, the opinion immediately around them, 
and this opinion even I have found to agree with our own 
in awarding them no superiority of character. 

Ce qu'ils peuvent n'est rien ; ils sont ce que nous sommes, 
Veritablement hommes, 
Et vivent comme nous. 

Nothing more than probity is required of them. But 
what is this merely human virtue for the formidable mi- 
nistry which requires probity divinized — that is, sanctity f 
I might here show how 1 could be borne out in this state- 
ment by celebrated examples and piquant anecdotes ; but 
this is a matter I wish to treat as if I were treading on 
burning coals. Let one great fact suffice, because it is 
public, and cannot be gainsaid : the fact of the universal 
decline in public opinion of the Protestant evangelical 
ministry. The evil is of ancient date, and is traceable to 
the early days of the "Reformation/'' The celebrated 
Lesdiguieres, who resided long on the frontiers of the duchy 
of Savoy, highly esteemed and saw frequently St. Francis 
of Sales, at that time bishop of Geneva. The Protestant 
ministers, shocked at such a friendship, resolved to address 
an admonition in due form to the noble warrior, who was 
then, moreover, the chief of their party. Whoever desires 
to know what happened, and what was said on that occa- 
sion, may read the whole history in one of our ascetic 
works, which enjoys a tolerable circulation.* For my part, 
I am not copying. 

a Spirit of St. Francis of Sales, collected from the writings of 
M. de Camus, Bishop of Belley, in 8vo. part iii. ch. xxiii. 



CHAP. III.] DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 



263 



England is pointed to ; but it is in England particularly 
that the degradation of the evangelical ministry is most 
obvious. The property of the clergy is almost all become 
the patrimony of the junior members of good families, who 
amuse themselves in the world, like the people of the world, 
leaving, moreover, to hired substitutes the task of praising 
God* 

The bench of bishops in the House of Peers is a kind of 
superfluity which might be removed without occasioning 
the least inconvenience. These prelates scarcely venture 
to speak even on matters connected with religion. The 
clergy of the second order is excluded from the national 
representation, and, in order to keep them always at a 
distance from it, recourse is had to an historical subtlety 
which a breath of the legislature might have removed long 
ago, if opinion did not, as is obvious, repel them. Not 
only is the clerical order lowered in public opinion, it is 
also mistrustful even of itself. Frequently has the English 
ecclesiastic been known, ashamed of his state, to efface 
from public writings the fatal letter 5 which precedes his 
name and denotes his character. Frequently also has he 
been seen disguised in a layman's dress, and sometimes, 
even, in military garb, figuring in drawing-rooms abroad, 
with his harlequin sword. 

At the time (1805) when in England was agitated with 
so much noise and solemnity the question of Catholic eman- 
cipation, ecclesiastics were spoken of in parliament with 
such bitterness, such harshness, and such decided mistrust, 
that strangers were, beyond comparison, more surprised than 
the ordinary audience. c 

It must be said also that there is, even in the character 
of this evangelical militia, something that forbids confi- 

a A des chantres gages le soin de loner Dieu. 
b R. initial of Reverend. 

c A member of the House of Commons observed, meanwhile, 
that there was something strange in this kind of general railing 
against the ecclesiastical order. If I am not mistaken, this mem- 
ber was Mr. Stephens ; but as I took no written note on this 
point, I affirm nothing, except that the remark was made. 



264 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



dence and invokes discredit. There is no authority, no 
rule, and consequently no common belief in their churches. 
They themselves acknowledge with perfect candour, " that 
the Protestant ecclesiastic is not obliged to subscribe any 
confession of faith whatever, except for the sake of public 
repose and tranquillity, without any other object than to 
maintain between the members of the same community 
external union ; but that in other respects none of these 
confessions can be considered, properly speaking, a rule of 
faith. Protestants recognize no other than the Holy 
Scripture. 51 

When, therefore, one of these preachers goes to preach, 
what means has he of proving that he believes what he 
says ? and what means has he, moreover, of knowing that 
his audience is not making light of him ? I cannot avoid 
thinking I hear every one of his hearers saying to him with 
a sceptic grin, " Truly, I believe that he believes 

THAT I BELIEVE HIM." b 

One of the most hardened fanatics that ever existed, 
Warburton, founded, at his death, a chair, to prove that 
the Pope is Antichrist* To the shame of our unfortunate 
nature, this chair has not yet been vacant. There was 
seen advertised in the English newspapers of this year 

a Considerations on the Studies necessary for those who aspire 
to the Holy Ministry, by CI. Ces. Chavanne, Min. du S. Ev. et 
Prof, en Theol. a l'Acad. de Lausanne. Yverdun, 1771, in 8vo. 
pp. 105, 106. 

b F credo ch' ei credette ch' io credesse. — Dante, Infern. xiii. 25. 

c The name of Warburton brings to my recollection, that 
among his works is found an edition of Shakspeare, with a pre- 
face and commentary. Nobody, doubtless, will behold in this 
anything reprehensible on the part of a man of letters ; but, let 
us imagine, if we can, Christophe de Beaumont, for instance, editor 
and commentator of Corneille or of Moliere. The idea is im- 
possible. Why ? Because there is question of a man of quite 
another order than Warburton. Both wear the mitre. Never- 
theless, the one is a pontiff, the other merely a gentleman. The 
former may be made ridiculous, or even be stigmatized, by what 
does no harm to the latter. 

It is well known that when Telemachus appeared, Bossuet did 
not find the work sufficiently serious for a priest. I am far from 
saying that he was right, I only observe that Bossuet said so. 



CHAP. III.] DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 265 

(1817), a discourse delivered on account of the foundation. 
I do not at all believe in the good faith of Warburton ; but, 
although it were possible on the part of one man, how 
imagine a succession of extravagant persons all gone wrong- 
in the same way — all raving in sincerity ? Common sense 
totally rejects such a conclusion ; so that, without the least 
doubt, several, perhaps all, will have spoken for money 
against their conscience. Only fancy a Pitt, a Food, a 
Burke, a Grey, a Granville, or other minds of the like 
calibre, attending one of these sermons ! Not only must 
the preacher be lost in their estimation, discredit will also 
reflect upon the whole order of preachers. 

I speak here of a particular case ; but there are many 
other causes which wound the character of the dissenting 
ecclesiastic, and lower him in opinion. It is impossible 
that men, habitually mistrusted, can enjoy much considera- 
tion ; never will they be looked upon by their own party, 
even, otherwise than as advocates paid to support a certain 
cause. They will never be denied talent, science, punc- 
tuality in the fulfilment of their duties ; sincerity is quite 
another thing. 

" The doctrine of a reformed Church/'' says Gibbon, 
" has nothing in common with the knowledge or the belief 
of those who are connected with it, and the modern clergy 
subscribe, with a sigh or a smile, the forms of orthodoxy 

and established symbols The predictions of the 

Catholics haw come to be fulfilled. The Arminians, the 
Arians, the Socinians, whose numbers cannot be calcu- 
lated according to their respective congregations, have 
broken and rejected the connected series of the mysteries 
of revelation/' 

Gibbon here expresses the universal opinion of en- 
lightened Protestants in regard to their clergy. I have 
had many opportunities of knowing this fact, and have 
learned it for certain. There is, therefore, no medium for 
the reformed minister. If he preaches dogma, men believe 
that he is retailing falsehood ; if he dare not preach it, they 
do not believe that he is anything. 

The sacred character having been wholly obliterated 



266 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



from the brow of these ministers, sovereigns no longer 
considered them otherwise than as civil officers, whose duty 
it was to follow, together with the rest of the flock, under 
the common crook. The touching complaints uttered even 
by a member of this unfortunate order on the way in which 
temporal authority makes use of their ministry, will not be 
read without interest. After having declaimed, like a 
vulgar man, against the Catholic hierarchy, he soars of a 
sudden above all prejudices, and pronounces these solemn 
words : — 

" Protestantism has not less vilified the sacerdotal dig- 
nity. 3 In order not to seem to aspire to the Catholic 
hierarchy, the Protestant priests divested themselves very 
speedily of all religious appearance, and placed themselves 

most humbly at the feet of temporal authority 

Because it was by no means the vocation of the Protestant 
priests to govern the state, it ought not thence to have 
been concluded that it belonged to the state to rule the 

Church. b The salaries which the state awards to 

ecclesiastics, have rendered them quite worldly 

Together with their sacerdotal robes, they have cast off 

the spiritual character The state has done its 

work, and all the evil must be laid to the charge of the 

a Thus the character is vilified on both sides ! It is quite ne- 
cessary, however, to decide either for the one or for the other ; 
for, if the priesthood he vilified by the hierarchy and by the 
suppression of the hierarchy, it is clear that God has not been 
able to institute a priesthood ; which appears to me rather too 
much. 

b Nowhere does the state govern the Church ; but always and 
everywhere it will justly govern those who, having gone out 
of the Church, still, nevertheless, call themselves the Church, 
We must choose between the Catholic hierarchy and civil su- 
premacy — there is no middle course. And who would dare to 
blame the sovereigns who establish civil unity wherever they 
find that no other exists 1 Let the separated clergy, therefore, who 
have no complaint to make, except against themselves, return 
within the pale of legitimate unity, and they will immediately 
resume, as if by enchantment, the high dignity from which they 
acknowledge themselves fallen. With what cordiality, with what 
joy, would we not, with our own hands, bear them into the fold ! 
Our regard there awaits them. 



CHAP. III.] DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 267 

Protestant clergy. It has become frivolous The 

priests do no more than fulfil their duty as citizens 

The state no longer views them in any other light than as 

officers of police It has little esteem for them, 

and assigns to them the lowest rank amongst its oflicers. 
. . . . i . . When religion becomes the servant of the state, 
it is permitted to look upon it in this degraded condition 
as the work of men, and even as a deception. 3. In our 
days only have industry, diet, politics, rural economy, and 

police been known to enter the pulpit The priest 

must believe that he follows out his destiny, and fulfils his 
duties in giving a lecture from the pulpit on the regulations 
of the police. He must publish in his sermons receipts 
against epizootia, show the necessity of vaccination, and 
preach on the means of prolonging human life. How, then, 
after this, will he set about diverting men's affections from 
temporal and perishable things, whilst he himself endea- 
vours, with the sanction of government, to attach them to 

THE GALLEYS OF LIFE V' h 

Behold here more than I would have ventured to say 
from my own observations ; for it costs me much, even 
when recriminating, to write a single unkind expression ; 
but I believe it to be a duty to show the state of opinion 
as it really is. I honour sincerely the ministers of the 
Holy Gospel, who certainly bear a very fine title. I know, 
even, that spriest is nothing if he is not a minister of the 
Holy Gospel ; but the latter, in his turn, is nothing if he 
is not a priest. Let him listen, therefore, to the truth which 
is told him, not only without anger, but even with love. 
Every teaching body, when it is no longer possible to believe in 
its good faith, necessarily falls, even in the opinion of its own 
party, and disdain, mistrust, and estrangement increase in 
proportion. If the Protestant ecclesiastic is more considered 
and less a stranger to society than the clergy of the Churches 

8 Exactly what lias been above remarked ; and it is a subject 
presenting an inexhaustible source of useful reflections. 

b On the True Character of the Evangelical Priest, by Professor 
Marheinexe, at Heidelberg, printed in the Patriotic Museum of 
the Germans, at Hamburgh. 



268 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



that are only schismatical, it is because he is less a priest ; 
the degree of degradation being always in proportion to the 
intensity of the sacerdotal character. 

There is no question, therefore, of vainly praising one- 
self, or of still more vainly preferring oneself to others ; we 
must hear truth and do it homage. 

Did not Rousseau write to a French lady : " I naturally 
love your clergy as much as I hate those of the opposite 
side. I have many friends among the clergy of France," 

He is still more amiable in his Lettres de la Montague, 
where he tells us the secret, " That the ministers no longer 
know what they believe, nor what they aim at, nor what 
they say ; that even what they pretend to believe is not 
known ; and that interest alone determines their faith." b 

The celebrated Hellenist, M. Fred. Aug. Wolff, observes, 
with admirable wisdom, in his Prolegomena to Homer, 
" that a book, being once consecrated by public custom, 
veneration prevents us from seeing in it things that are 
absurd or ridiculous ; that whatever does not appear tolera- 
ble to individual reason, is softened down and embellished 
by suitable interpretations ; that the more ingenuity and 
science are shown in such explications, the more religion is 
thought to be promoted ; that this practice has always pre- 
vailed in regard to books which pass for sacred ; and that 
if this measure is adopted in order to render the book useful 
to the majority of the people, no fault can be found 
with it." c 

This passage is an excellent commentary on the words 
just quoted from Rousseau, and tally unfolds the secret of 
Protestant teaching. A book might be made of such- like 
texts ; and, by a necessary consequence, another might be 
compiled from the marks of coldness or contempt showered 
upon the ecclesiastical order by the various Protestant 
sovereigns. 

a Lettres de J. J. Rousseau, in 8vo. torn. ii. p. 201. 
b The same, Seconde Lettre de la Montague. 
c Fred. Aug. Wolfii Prolegomena in Homerum. Halis Sax- 
onum, 1795, torn. i. No. 36, p. clxiii. 



CHAP. III.] DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 269 

One decides that lie has " thought fit to cause to be com- 
posed a new liturgy more conformable to the teaching of 
pure religion, public edification, and the spirit of the 
present age ; and that several motives have determined him 
not to suffer that ecclesiastics should in any way interfere 
with the composition of these new liturgical formulas." a 

Another forbids all the ministers and preachers of his 
states to employ the formula, May the Lord bless you, &c., 
" considering/' says the prince, " that ecclesiastics them- 
selves have need of the Divine benediction, and that it is 
arrogant on the part of a mortal to pretend to speak in the 
name of Providence." b 

What a priesthood ! and what a state of opinion ! I 
have studied this opinion in books, in conversation, in 
the acts of sovereignty, and I have always found it in- 
variably hostile to the ecclesiastical order. I can even 
add (and God knows I speak truth), that a thousand and 
a thousand times, in contemplating these ministers, ille- 
gitimate, no doubt, and justly stricken, but notwithstand- 
ing less rebels themselves than children of rebels, and 
victims of those tyrant prejudices, 

" Which, perhaps, from our minds God only can efface ; " 

I beheld in our own clergy a tender interest, a fraternal 
sadness, a delicate and reverent compassion, and, in fine, 
I know not what undefinable feeling, which I was far 
from witnessing among their own brethren. 

If the writers I have quoted at the commencement of 
this treatise had been satisfied with affirming that the Ca- 
tholic clergy would probably hare avoided great misfor- 
tunes if they had been more alive to the duties of their 

a Journal de Paris, Wednesday, 21st December, 1808, No. 556, 
p. 2573. It is a strange thing, it must be owned, to find the 
ecclesiastical order declared incapable of interfering in ecclesi- 
astical affairs. 

* Journal de P Empire, 17th October, 1809, p. 4 (sous la ru- 
brique de Francfort, du 11 Octobre). By the same reason, a 
father would be arrogant if he presumed to bless his son ! What 
powerful reasoning ! But it is only chicanery made use of 
against the clergy, who are not liked. 



270 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



state, I doubt whether they would have found any to con- 
tradict them, even among these clergy themselves, for 
no Catholic priest presumes that he is in every respect 
equal to his sublime functions ; he will always entertain 
the belief that there is something wanting to him ; but, 
in condemning certain shortcomings — the unavoidable fruit 
of prolonged peace — it is not less true that the Catho- 
lic clergy remain matchless in point of conduct, and 
the consideration which attends it. This is so strikingly 
the case, that it can only be called in question through 
wilful blindness. 

It is fortunate, no doubt, that in our days experience of 
the most glorious kind has come to the aid of a theory, 
otherwise, indeed, incontestable ; and that, after having 
demonstrated what ought to be, I have it in my power to 
point out what really is. What a spectacle have not the 
French clergy, dispersed over all nations, presented to the 
world ! In presence of their virtues, what becomes of all 
the declamations of their enemies ? The French priest, 
free from all authority, frequently in the full strength of 
youth and passion, driven among nations strangers to his 
austere discipline, and who would have applauded what we 
would have called crimes, remained, nevertheless, stead- 
fastly faithful to his vows. By what force, then, was he 
sustained, and how did he show himself superior to the 
weaknesses of humanity ? He won, especially, the esteem 
of the English people, who can so well appreciate talents 
and virtue, and who, in the event of the least failings, 
would have been inexorable accusers. The man who would 
enter an English house as physician, surgeon, or teacher, 
crosses not the threshold if unmarried. A jealous prudence 
mistrusts every man whose affections have not a fixed and 
lawful object. We would say that it does not believe in 
resistance, so much does it dread attack. The priest alone 
has been able to escape this suspicious delicacy, and has 
entered English houses on the very grounds which would 
have excluded other men. A sentiment of rancorous ha- 
tred of three hundred years' duration, could not stifle in 
the minds of men, the belief in the sanctity of religious 



CHAP. III.] DIGNITY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 271 

celibacy. Disquietude gave place to tranquillity, in con- 
sideration of the sacerdotal character, so great, so striking, 
so thoroughly inimitable? like that of truth from which it 
emanates. And such an Englishman, perhaps, who had 
frequently spoken or written according to his prejudices, 
against ecclesiastical celibacy, beheld, without apprehen- 
sion, his wife or his daughter receive instructions from a 
Catholic priest ; so infallible is conscience, so little does 
it trouble itself about what the mind imagines or the mouth 
utters ! 

Women, even, devoted to this same celibacy, have par- 
ticipated in the same glory. How loudly had not philoso- 
phism declaimed against forced vows and the victims of the 
cloister} 3 And, nevertheless, when an assembly of fools, 
who did their best to be villains, afforded themselves the 
sacrilegious pleasure of declaring vows illegitimate, and of 
opening the cloisters, it was necessary to pay, I know not 
what impudent creature from the streets, to come to the 
bar of the Assembly, and act the part of the emancipated 
nun. 

The religious women of France emulated the intrepidity 
of the priests in the prisons and on the scaffold, and those 
whom the revolutionary tempest had dispersed among 
foreign nations, and even in America, far from yielding 
to the most dangerous seducements, were everywhere ad- 
mired for their attachment to their state of life, their 

a Well-known expressions of Rousseau, & propos of the marks 
of truth displayed throughout the Gospel. 

b These foolish declamations are found, as is well known, col- 
lected and condensed in the Melanie of La Harpe. In vain did 
the author, after his return to truth, apply with the greatest 
earnestness, to have his work removed from the repertory ; he 
was obstinately denied, and this want of delicacy reflects on the 
French nation far more than is supposed. It is of no consequence, 
it will say. It is of great consequence. This example adds its 
weight to the new edition of Voltaire, to the stereotyped impres- 
sion of Joan of Arc, invariably advertised in all catalogues to- 
gether with the Discourse on Universal History and the Funeral 
Orations of Bossuet, &c. &c. 

c The mild expressions of Burke, in his letter to D. D. B., 
speaking of the National Assembly, 



272 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



respect for their vows, and the voluntary exercise of every 
virtue. 

This holy, this noble church of Gaul, has perished, a and 
we would be inconsolable for its loss, if the Lord had not 
left us a germe? 

The high nobility of the Catholic clergy is entirely due 
to celibacy; and this severe institution, being solely the 
work of the Popes, inwardly animated and guided by a 
spirit in regard to which conscience cannot be deceived, 
all the glory of it is attributable to them, and they must 
be considered by all competent judges the real founders of 
the priesthood. 

III.— POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 

Error, always increasing its strength in proportion to 
the importance of the truths it assails, exhausted itself in 
opposing religious celibacy, and after having attacked it on 
the ground of morality, it failed not to arraign it before 
the tribunal of policy, as contrary to population. This 
sophistry, however, had been triumphantly refuted. Already 
had Bacon, notwithstanding the prejudices peculiar to his 
time and his sect, directed attention to some signal advan- 
tages of celibacy. Already had the economists maintained, 
and sufficiently well proved, that the legislator ought never 
to concern himself directly about population, but only about 
the means of subsistence. Already had several writers 
among the clergy repelled the attacks made against their 
order, in respect of population. But it is a singular and 
piquant circumstance, that that hidden power, which sports 
in the universe, has made use of a Protestant pen to furnish 
the rigid demonstration of a truth contested so much, and 
so little to the purpose. 

I speak of Mr. Malthus, whose profound work on the 
principle of population, is one of those rare books, after 
which all are dispensed from treating the same subject, 

a Written soon after the great revolution. 
b Isaias i. 9. 

c Sermones Fideles, &c. cviii. — Op. torn. x. 



CHAP. IV.] 



EUROPEAN MONARCHY. 



273 



No writer before him, I believe, had clearly and fully 
proved the great temporal law of Divine Providence, that 
not only every man is not born to marry, but that, also, in 
every well-regulated state, there must be a law, a principle, 
some power, which shall oppose the multiplication of mar- 
riages. Malthus observes that the increase of the means 
of subsistence, in the most favourable supposition, being 
inferior to that of population in the enormous proportion of 
the two progressions respectively, the one arithmetical, the 
other geometrical, it follows that the state, by virtue of this 
disproportion, is held in constant danger, if the population 
be left to itself; which renders necessary the repressing 
power of which I have just spoken. 

But the number of marriages in a state can only be re- 
stricted in three ways, — by vice, by violence, or by morality. 
As no legislator can contemplate either of the two first 
ways, there remains only the third, which is, that there 
must be in the state a moral principle constantly tending to 
limit the number of marriages. 

And such is the difficult problem which the Church, in 
other words the Sovereign Pontiff, has solved by the law 
of ecclesiastical celibacy, as perfectly as is consistent with 
the state of human things ; for this Catholic restriction is 
not only moral, but Divine, and the Church founds it on 
motives so sublime, on means so efficacious, and on menaces 
so terrible, that it is not possible for the human mind to 
imagine anything equal to it, or at all approaching it. 

Hail then to Gregory VII.! eternal honour to this 
Pontiff and his successors, who have maintained the 
priesthood inviolate against all the sophisms of nature, 
of example, and of heresy. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FOUNDING OF EUROPEAN MONARCHY. 

Man is incapable of admiring what he beholds every 
day. Instead of extolling our monarchy, which is a mi- 

T 



274 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



racle, we call it despotism, and we speak of it as of something 
ordinary, which has always existed, and which merits no 
particular attention. 

The ancients opposed the reign of laws to that of kings, 
as they would have opposed republicanism to despotism. 
" Some nations/' says Tacitus, " tired of their kings, pre- 
ferred laws." a We have the good fortune not to under- 
stand this opposition, which is nevertheless quite real, and 
will always be so without Christianity. 

The nations of antiqiiity never doubted, any more than 
infidel nations doubt to-day, that the right of life and 
death belonged directly to sovereigns. It is superfluous to 
prove this truth, as it is written in letters of blood on 
every page of history. The first rays of Christianity did 
not as yet undeceive mankind on this point, since, accord- 
ing to the doctrine of the great St. Augustine himself, the 
soldier who does not kill when his legitimate prince com- 
mands him, is not less guilty than he who kills without 
orders. b Hence, we see that this great and fine mind had 
not yet conceived the idea of a new public law, which would 
deprive kings of the power to judge. 

But Christianity, so to speak, disseminated over the earth, 
could only prepare men's minds, and its great political ef- 
fects could only be carried out when the pontifical autho- 
rity having attained its just dimensions, the power of this 
religion should be concentrated in the hands of one man as 
an inseparable condition of its exercise. It was necessary, 
besides, that the Eoman empire should disappear. Putre- 
fied even to its remotest fibres, it was no longer worthy to 
receive the divine graft. Meanwhile, the robust wild stock 
of the north was advancing, and whilst it should trample 
under foot the ancient domination, the Popes were destined 
to grapple with it, and without ever ceasing either to caress 
or to combat it, to make of it in the end what never had had 
its equal in the world. 

R Quidam regum pertjesi leges maluerunt. — Tacit. 

b St. August. De Civit. Dei, 1, 29. Elsewhere, he further 
says : Reum regem facit iniquitas imperandi, innocentem autem 
militem ostendit ordo serviendi. — Idem, contra Faustuin. 



CHAP. IV.] EUROPEAN MONARCHY. 



275 



From the time that the new sovereignties began to be 
established, the Church ceased not, through the Popes, to 
announce to the nations these words of God in the Scrip- 
tures, " By me kings reign/' and to kings, " Judge not, 
that you may not be judged/' in order to establish at the 
same time the divine right of sovereignty, and the divine 
right of the people. 

" The Church/' Pascal admirably says, " forbids her 
children, still more strongly than the laws of the state, to 
take justice into their own hands ; and, agreeably to her 
teaching, Christian kings refrain from doing so, even in 
cases of the crime of lese-majesty against the head of the 
state, and hand over criminals to competent judges, in 
order that they may be punished according to the laws and 
the forms of justice." a 

Not that the Church ever issued any formal decree on 
this subject. I know not even if it could have done so, 
for there are things which must be left in a certain respect- 
able obscurity, without attempting to render them clearer 
by express laws. Kings, no doubt, have often, and too 
often, directly ordered punishments; but the spirit of the 
Church, always calmly advancing, won to itself opinion, 
and stigmatized such acts of sovereignty as solemn murders, 
more abominable, and not less criminal, than those of the 
highways. 

But how would the Church have been able to gain any 
concessions from monarchy, if monarchy itself had not 
been prepared, softened, and, I hesitate not to say, 
sweetened by the Popes ? What could each prelate do ? 
what even could each individual Church effect in opposition 
to its master ? Nothing. To accomplish this great work, 
there was necessary, not a human, physical, material power 
(for, in this case, there might have been temporal abuses), 
but a spiritual and moral power, which should reign only 
in opinion : such was the power of the Popes. No candid 
and uncorrupted mind will fail to acknowledge the action 
of Providence in this universal opinion, which took posses- 

a In the Provincial Letters. 

m O 



276 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



sion of Europe, and pointed out to all its inhabitants the 
Sovereign Pontiff as the source of European sovereignty, 
because the same authority, acting everywhere, effaced 
national differences as far as it was possible to do so, 
and because there is nothing which so powerfully tends to 
promote union among men as religious unity. Providence 
had confided to the Popes the education of European sove- 
reignty. But how educate without chastising ? Hence, so 
many shocks, so many attacks, sometimes partaking too 
much of human weakness, and so much ferocious resist- 
ance ; but the Divine principle was not less present always," 
acting always, and always manifest. It was so, especially, 
by that wonderful character I have already pointed out, 
but which cannot be too often remarked, that all action of 
the Popes against sovereigns redounded to the advantage 
of sovereignty. Never acting otherwise than as Divine de- 
legates, even when struggling against monarchs, they ceased 
not to admonish the subject that he could do nothing against 
his rulers. Immortal benefactors of mankind, they con- 
tended at the same time for the Divine character of sove- 
reignty, and for the legitimate liberty of men. The people, 
quite strangers to every kind of resistance, could not either 
grow proud or emancipate themselves, and the sovereigns, 
bending only under a Divine power, preserved all their 
dignity. Frederick, under the foot of the Pontiff, may 
have been an object of terror, or perhaps of compassion, 
but not of contempt, any more than David, prostrate 
before the angel deputed to bear to him the scourges of 
the Lord. 

The Popes educated the monarchy of Europe in its 
youth ; they literally made it, as Fenelon made the Duke 
of Burgundy. There was question on either side of extir- 
pating a great feature, an element of ferocity, which would 
have spoiled all. Whatever constrains man, fortifies him. 
He cannot obey without being improved ; and, by the very 
act of overcoming himself, he becomes better. Such a man 
will triumph over the most violent passion at thirty years 
of age, because at five or six he will have been taught will- 
ingly to forego a plaything or a sweetmeat. As in the 



CHAP. IV.] 



EUROPEAN MONARCHY. 



277 



case of a well-educated individual, so has it been in regard 
to monarchy. The constant efforts of the Church, directed 
by the Sovereign Pontiff, have effected what was never 
before seen, and what will never be witnessed wherever 
this authority is not acknowledged. Imperceptibly, without 
threats, without laws, without combats, without violence, 
and without resistance, the great European charter was 
proclaimed, not on perishable paper, not by the voice of 
public criers, but in all European hearts at that time 
Catholic. 

Kings abdicate the power of judging by themselves, and 
the people, in return, 'declare kings infallible and in- 
violable. 

Such is the fundamental law of European monarchy, 
and it is the work of the Popes — an unheard-of wonder, 
contrary to the natural nature of man, contrary to all facts 
of precedent history, which no man in ancient times had 
dreamed was possible ; and the most conspicuous Divine 
character of which is, that it has become common. 

'The Christian peoples who have not felt, or who have 
not sufficiently felt, the hand of the Sovereign Pontiff, will 
never possess this monarchy. In vain will they exert them- 
selves under an arbitrary power ; in vain will they strive to 
walk in the footsteps of nations that have been ennobled, 
ignorant that, before making laws for a people, they must 
make a people for the laws. All efforts will not only be 
vain, but fatal ; like Ixion of old, they will provoke the 
anger of God, and grasp only a cloud. To be admitted to 
the European banquet, to be rendered worthy of that 
admirable sceptre, which never was efficient except in 
nations that were prepared ; to arrive, in fine, at that 
goal so ridiculously indicated by an impotent philosophy, — 
all routes are false, save only that by which we have been 
conducted. 

The nations which have remained sufficiently under the 
influence of the Sovereign Pontiff to receive this impress of 
Divinity, but who have, unfortunately, allowed it to be 
obliterated, will also furnish a proof of the great truth I am 
maintaining ; but this proof will be of quite an opposite 



278 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



character. Among the first (the nations that have never 
sufficiently known the Pontifical power), the people will 
never obtain their rights ; among the latter, the sovereign 
will lose his ; and hence will arise their return. 

Kings encouraged, three centuries ago, the great rebel- 
lion which had in view the plunder of the Church. a They 
will yet be seen reconducting their people within the pale 
of unity, in order to reconsolidate their thrones, shaken 
to their foundations by the new doctrines. 

Union in different degrees, and under different forms 
of government, and in different states of the priesthood, 
was always too general in the world not to be Divine. Be- 
tween civil government and the priesthood there is a na- 
tural affinity ; they must unite, or sustain one another. 
If the one withdraws, the other suffers. 

Alterius sic 

Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice. 

Every European nation, when withdrawn from the in- 
fluence of the Holy See, will be inevitably borne towards 
servitude or rebellion. The just equilibrium which dis- 
tinguishes European monarchy can only be the effect of 
the superior cause I am pointing out. 

This wonderful balance of power is such, that it gives 
to the prince all the authority which does not admit of 
actual tyranny, and to the people all the liberty which 
does not exclude indispensable obedience. Thus, power is 
immense, without being inordinate, and obedience is per- 
fect, without being mean. This is the only government 
suited to men of all times and all places ; all other forms 
are only exceptions. Wherever the sovereign, not having 
power to inflict directly any punishment, is not himself 
amenable in any case, and is responsible to nobody, there 

a Hume, who, having no belief, was under no restraint, ac- 
knowledges, without intending to be complimentary, that the 
real ground of the Reformation, was the desire " to steal the 
silver plate and all the ornaments of the altars." — A pretence for 
making spoil of the plate, vestures, and rich ornaments belonging to 
the altars. — Hume's Hist, of Eng. Elizabeth, ch. xl. ann. 1568. 



CHAP. IV.] EUROPEAN MONARCHY. 279 

is sufficient power and sufficient liberty ; the rest is of 
little importance. a 

There is much said about Turkish despotism ; and, ne- 
vertheless, this despotism all resolves into the power of 
punishing directly; in other words, the power to assas- 
sinate, — the only power of which universal opinion deprives 
the Christian king ; for it is highly important that our 
princes should be persuaded of a truth they little suspect, 
and which, notwithstanding, is incontestable: it is, that 
they are incomparably more powerful than Asiatic princes. 
The sultan may be legally deposed and put to death by 
a decree of the Mollas and Ulhemas united. 5 He could 
not cede a province, or even a single town, without ex- 
posing his head ; he cannot dispense with going to the 
mosque on Friday ; invalid sultans have been known to 
make a last exertion to mount on horseback, and fall 
dead by the way ; he cannot preserve a male child born 
in his house out of the direct line of succession ; he can- 
not reverse the sentence of a cadi ; he cannot interfere 
with a religious establishment, nor with the property gifted 
to a mosque, &c. 

If there were offered to one of our princes the sublime 
right of ordering men to the gallows, on condition that 
he himself should be liable to be arraigned before a court, 
deposed, or put to death, I doubt whether he would ac- 
cept ; and, nevertheless, he would only be offered what we 
call the omnipotence of the sultans. 

When we hear speak of the bloody catastrophes which 
have cost so many of these princes their lives, judging 
these events according to our ideas, we behold in them 
plots, assassinations, revolutions ; there is nothing more 
erroneous. Of the whole Ottoman dynasty, only one 

* The right of self-taxation, for instance, about which so much 
noise is made, is certainly of no great consequence. The nations 
which enjoy this privilege are always the most highly taxed. 
It is quite the same as regards co-legislation. The laws will be 
at least as good, wherever there is only one legislator. 

b These two bodies are much the same as what the clergy and 
magistracy are amongst us. 



280 



THE POPE. 



[book hi: 



perished illegally by an undoubted insurrection ; but this 
crime is viewed at Constantinople just as we view the 
assassination of Charles I. or that of Louis XIV. The 
company or Horta of Janissaries who were guilty of the 
deed, was suppressed, whilst its name was preserved and 
devoted to eternal ignominy. At each review, it is called 
in its turn, and, when its name is pronounced, a public 
officer replies, in a loud voice, " It is no more ! it is 
accursed," &c. &c. 

In general, these executions, which terminate so many 
reigns, are acknowledged by the law. We have seen a 
memorable instance of this in the death of the amiable 
Selim, the last victim of this terrible public law. Wearied 
of power, he desired to hand it over to his uncle, who said 
to him, "Take care what you do ; the factions are fatiguing 
you ; but, when you are reduced to a private station, an- 
other faction may very possibly recall you to the throne, that 
is, to death/' Selim persisted, and the prophecy was ac- 
complished. Soon after his abdication, a powerful faction 
having undertaken to replace him on the throne, a fefia of 
the divan caused him to be strangled. The decree addressed 
to the sovereign in such cases much resembles that which 
the Roman senate addressed to the consuls at moments of 
danger — Videant consules, Sfc. 

Wherever the sovereign exercises the power of punishing 
directly, it is necessary that he be liable to be judged, de- 
posed, and put to death ; and if there be no fixed law on 
this point, the murder of a sovereign must neither alarm 
nor anywise shock the imagination ; it is necessary even 
that the authors of these terrible executions should not be 
stigmatized by public opinion, and that the youths who 
organize themselves for such purposes agree to bear the 
names of their fathers. And such is, in fact, the case ; for 
whatever is necessary exists. 

Opinion is what it ought to be. It requires that men in 
certain circumstances should be able without dishonour to 
lay violent hands on the prince who is invested with the 
right to inflict death. 

By a quite contrary reason, opinion as well as law ought 



CHAP. V.] RELIGION AND SOVEREIGNTY. 281 

to crush every man that dares lay hands on the monarch 
who is declared inviolable. The name, even, of regicide 
disappears, stifled under the load of infamy ; when it is 
otherwise, the dignity of the victim appears sometimes to 
ennoble the murder. 



CHAPTER V. 

HOW LONG PRINCES COMMONLY LIVE. SECRET ALLIANCE OF 
RELIGION AND OF SOVEREIGNTY. 

In reading history, one would be tempted to believe that 
violent death is natural to princes, and that as regards 
them, natural death is the exception. 

Of thirty emperors who reigned during two centuries and 
a half, from Augustus to Valerian, six only died a natural 
death. In France, from Clovis to Dagobert, in a period 
of one hundred and fifty years, more than forty kings or 
princes of the blood-royal perished by a violent death. a 

And is it not deplorable that in these latter times it has 
been possible to say also, " If in the space of two centuries 
we find in France ten monarchs or dauphins, three are 
assassinated, three perish by means secretly prepared, and 
the last dies upon the scaffold.''' b 

The historian (Gamier) just quoted considers it certain 
that the lives of princes are ordinarily shorter than those of 
the generality of men, on account of the great number of 
violent deaths which usually terminate these royal lives : — 
" Whether/' he adds, " this general shortness of the lives 
of kings arise from the embarrassments and chagrins of the 

a Gamier, Hist, de Charlemagne, torn. i. in 12mo. introd. ch. ii. 
p. 219. Passage rappele par M. Bernardi, dans son ouvrage 
de VOrigine et des Progres de la Legislation Francaise. — Journal 
des Debats, 2 Aout, 1816. 

b For the terrible dissertation from which this quotation is taken, 
see the Journal de Paris, July, 1793, No. 183. The author ap- 
pears, nevertheless, to have died in the full possession of his 
senses. Sit tibi terra levis ! 



282 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



throne, or from the fatal facility kings and princes possess 
of satisfying all their passions." a 

First thoughts are in favour of this observation ; never- 
theless, on examining the matter very minutely, I have 
been led to quite a different conclusion, 

It appears that the ordinary life of man is much about 
twenty-seven years. b 

On the other hand, if we relied on the calculations of 
Newton, the ordinary duration of the reigns of kings would 
be found to be from eighteen to twenty years ; and I think 
that this estimate would be attended with no difficulty, if 
no distinction were made of ages and nations, in other 
words, of religions ; but this distinction must be made, as 
Sir William Jones has observed : — " In examining, " says 
he, " the Asiatic dynasties, from the decline of the cali- 
phate, I have found only ten or twelve years to be the 
common duration of reigns/' c 

Another distinguished member of the Academy of Cal- 
cutta pretends, that, according to the bills of mortality, the 
ordinary life of man is from thirty-two to thirty-three years, 
"and that, in a long succession of princes, there cannot be 
assigned to each reign, one with another, more than the 
half of this latter period, say seventeen years." d 

This last calculation may be true, if Asiatic reigns are 
admitted into the common estimate ; but, as regards 
Europe, it would certainly be false ; for the ordinary length 
of European reigns exceeds, and that for a long time back, 
the term of twenty years, and in several Catholic states 
rises as high as twenty-five. 

a Gamier, ibid. pp. 227, 228. 

b D'Alembert, Melanges de Litterature et de Philosophie, Am- 
sterdam, 1767, calcul des probab. p. 285. This same D'Alembert 
observes meanwhile that there were doubts as to these estimates, 
and that the mortuary tables required to be prepared with more 
care and precision. — Opusc. Math. Paris, 1768, in 4to. torn. v. on 
the tables of mortality, p. 231. Since that time, this has been 
done, I believe, with great exactness. 

c Sir William Jones's Works, in 4to. torn. v. p. 354. — Pref. of 
his Description of Asia. 

d Mr. Bentley, in the Asiatic Researches. — Supplem. to the 
works quoted, torn. ii. in 4to. p. 1035. 



CHAP. V.] RELIGION AND SOVEREIGNTY. 283 

Let us take a middle term, thirty, between the two 
numbers twenty-seven and thirty-three, assigned as the 
common duration of the lives of sovereigns, and the number 
twenty, evidently too low, as all may be satisfied from their 
own observations, for the ordinary duration of European 
reigns. I ask how it is possible that the common term of 
life should be thirty years only, and the duration of reigns 
from twenty-two to twenty-five, if princes (I speak of 
Christian princes) did not enjoy a longer life than the rest 
of men ? This consideration would prove what has always 
appeared to me infinitely probable, that truly royal families 
are naturally different from others, as a tree is different 
from a shrub. 

Nothing happens, nothing exists, without a sufficient 
reason ; a family can only reign because it has more life, 
more of the spirit of royalty — in a word, more of what 
renders a family more fitted to reign. 

It is believed that a family is royal because it reigns ; — 
on the contrary, it reigns because it is royal. 

In forming our opinion of sovereigns, we are too apt to 
commit an unpardonable fault, in directing our attention 
to some weak points of their characters or of their lives. 
We get upon our stilts, and say, " See what kings are!" 
whilst each of us ought to say, "What would I myself be, 
if some revolutionary movement had borne one of my fore- 
fathers, even three or four generations back, to the throne ? 
A madman, an imbecile } whom it would be necessary to get 
rid of at any cost." 

Kings, unfortunately, are condemned by Providence to 
pass their lives, Stylites-like, on the top of a pillar, without 
having it in their power to descend from their elevation. 
They cannot, therefore, see so well as we do what occurs 
immediately below ; but in return for this disadvantage, 
they see from a greater distance. They are gifted with a 
certain inward tact, an instinct, which guides them often 
better than the reasonings of those by whom they are sur- 
rounded. I am so persuaded of this truth, that in all 
doubtful matters I would always have difficulty, on con- 
scientious grounds even, if I must speak plainly, in contra- 



284 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



dieting, although in the way that is allowed, the will of 
sovereigns. After having told them the truth, as in duty 
bound, it remains for us only to let them do as they please, 
and assist them. 

We are in the habit of comparing a prince to a private 
individual — nothing more sophistical. There are difficul- 
ties arising out of the position of sovereigns, and which, 
consequently, ought not to be taken into account. A reign- 
ing family must therefore be compared to a private family 
supposed to be reigning, and which would consequently be 
subject to the same difficulties. Now, in this supposition, 
there is not the least doubt as to the superiority of the 
former, or, to speak more correctly, the incapacity of 
the latter. For a family that is not royal never can 
reign. a 

We should not, therefore, be surprised to find in royal 
families more life upon the whole than in all others. But 
this leads me to the exposition of one of the greatest oracles 
pronounced in the Sacred Writings : — 

" For the sins of the land, many are the princes 
thereof ; and for the wisdom of men, and the know- 
ledge of those things that are said, the life of the 

PRINCE SHALL BE PROLONGED." PrOV. XXviii. 2. 

There is nothing so true, nothing so profound, nothing 

a Legitimate sovereignty may be imitated for a time : it is sus- 
ceptible also of more or less ; and those who have reflected much, 
on this great subject will have no difficulty in recognizing the 
characters, wherever they exist, of this more or less, or of, it may 
be, the absence of everything essential to real sovereignty. 
If nothing is known of the origin of a sovereignty, — if it 
has commenced, so to speak, of itself, without violence on the 
one hand, as without acceptance or deliberation on the other ; if, 
moreover, the king is European and Catholic, he is, as Homer 
expresses it, very much a king ((3ao-i\evTaTog). The farther he is 
removed from this pattern, the less is he king. We must, par- 
ticularly, count very little on races produced in the midst of 
tempests, raised up by force or by policy, and who especially 
show themselves environed, flanked, defended, consecrated, by 

fraud fundamental laws, written on beautiful vellum, and which 
ave foreseen all cases. Such races cannot last. There would be 
many more things to say, if it were desirable or possible to say them. 



CHAP. V.] KELIGION AND SOVEREIGNTY. 285 

so terrible, and, unfortunately, nothing so little attended 
to. The connection between religion and sovereignty 
ought never to be lost sight of. I remember having read 
some time ago the following title of an English sermon : 
"Sins of the government, sins of the nation."* I sub- 
scribe it without having read it ; the title alone is of more 
value than many volumes. 

In comparing the sovereign races of Europe and Asia, 
Sir William Jones remarks, " that the nature of the 
wretched governments of Asia distinguishes them from 
ours, as regards the duration of races/ ' b Undoubtedly ; 
but religion, it must be added, constitutes the difference 
between these governments. Mahometanism allows only 
ten or twelve years to its sovereigns ; for, on account of 
the sins of the land, many are the princes thereof ; and in 
all infidel countries there must necessarily be infinitely 
more crimes, and infinitely fewer virtues, than amongst us, 
however great a falling off there may be in our manners, 
since, notwithstanding this falling off, truth is constantly 
preached to us, and we possess a knowledge of the things that 
are said to us. 

In Christian countries, therefore, the length of reigns 
may be computed at twenty-five years. In France, the 
average reign, calculated from a period of three hundred 
years, is twenty-five years. In Denmark, in Portugal, 
and in Piedmont, the average length is also twenty-five 
years. In Spain, it is twenty-two years ; and there is, as 
the reader has seen, some difference between the durations 
of different Christian governments ; but all Christian reigns 
are longer than all the reigns that are not Christian, both 
ancient and modern. 

An important consideration on the duration of reigns 
might perhaps be taken from Protestant sovereignties, 

a A Discourse intended for the Late Fast. — London Chronicle, 
1793, No. 5,747. It appears to me that such a title and such a 
subject could only have been fallen upon by a wise and luminous 
mind. 

b Sir William Jones's Works, torn. v. p. 533 (in the Preface to 
the Description of Asia). 



286 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



compared with themselves before the Reformation, and with 
those which have not changed their faith. 

The reigns of England, which were above twenty-three 
years before the Reformation, are, since that epoch, no 
longer more than seventeen. It is possible, therefore, that 
the law, incontestable as regards heathen nations that have 
been from their origin strangers to the influence of the 
Holy See, may likewise have shown itself in nations that 
have only ceased to be Catholic after having been so for a 1 
great length of time. Nevertheless, as there may be com- 
pensations that are not known, and that Denmark, for 
instance, by virtue of some cause, hidden, indeed, but 
highly creditable to the nation, does not appear to have 
been subject to the law by which reigns are shortened, it 
is proper we should wait before attempting to generalize. 
This law, besides, being obvious, it remains only to ex- 
amine how far it extends. We cannot inquire too pro- 
foundly into the influence of religion on the duration of 
reigns and dynasties. 



CHAPTER VI. 

OBSERVATIONS ON RUSSIA. 

What a grand phenomenon Russia presents ! This 
empire, placed between Europe and Asia, partakes of 
both. Nor need she be humbled by the Asiatic element 
she so obviously possesses. We might rather behold in it 
a title to superiority ; but, as regards religion, Russia 
labours under very great disadvantages, such, even, as 
that it becomes a question whether, in the opinion of a 
really good judge, she be any nearer the truth than Pro- 
testant nations. 

The deplorable schism of the Greeks, and the invasion 
of the Tartars, prevented the Russians from participating 
in the great movement of European and legitimate civiliza- 
tion which radiated from Rome. Cyrillus and Methodius, 



CHAP. VI.] 



OBSERVATIONS ON RUSSIA. 



287 



Apostles of the Sclavi, had received their powers from the 
Holy See, and they had even gone to Rome to give an 
account of their mission. a But the chain of connection 
was scarcely established, when it was cut by the hands of 
that Photius of fatal and odious memory, whom humanity 
in general cannot less strongly condemn than religion it- 
self, in regard to which he was, nevertheless, so guilty. 

Russia, therefore, as it scarcely had time to feel the 
hand of the Sovereign Pontiffs, remained a stranger to the 
general influence, and could not be actuated by the spirit 
which was universal in other nations. Hence it happens 
that its religion is wholly external, and has no place in the 
heart. We must beware of confounding the poicer of reli- 
gion on man with the attachment of man to religion, — two 
things which have nothing in common. Such a person 
who will steal all his life, without even entertaining the 
idea of restitution, or will live in the most guilty connec- 
tion, whilst he regularly performs his devotions, may very 
possibly defend an image at the risk of his life, and even 
die rather than partake of flesh-meat on a day on which it 
is forbidden. The power of religion is that which changes 
and elevates man, b by rendering him capable of a higher 
degree of virtue, of civilization, and of knowledge. These 
three things are inseparable, and the inward action of legi- 

a Cyrillus and Methodius translated the liturgy into Sclavonic, 
and caused mass to be celebrated in the language spoken by the 
people whom they had converted. There were, in this respect, 
on the part of the Popes, much resistance and great restrictions, 
which, unfortunately, did not produce the desired effect, as re- 
garded the Russians. We have a letter of Pope John VIII. (the 
cxciv.), addressed to the Duke of Moravia, Sfentopulk, in the year 
859. He says to this prince : " We approve the Sclavonic letters 
invented by the philosopher Constantine (the same Cj^rillus just 
alluded to), and we command that the praises of God be sung in 
the Sclavonic language." — See the Lives of the Saints, translated 
from the English ; Lives of St. Cyrillus and St. Methodius, 14 
Feb. in 8vo. torn. ii. p. 265. This precious book is an excellent 
miniature of the Bollandists. 

b Lex Domini immaculata convertens animas. — Ps. xviii. 8. 
A rabbi of Mantua said to a Catholic priest of my acquaintance, 
in the confidence of a tete a tete : " It must be acknowledged, 



288 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



tirnate power is always manifested externally by the pro^ 
longation of reigns. 

Few traveller authors have spoken of Russia with affec- 
tion. Almost all have noticed its weak points, in order to 
amuse the malice of their readers. Some, even, such as 
Dr. Clarke, have spoken with a degree of severity which 
excites alarm, and Gibbon has no hesitation in calling 
the Russians the most ignorant and most superstitious fol- 
lowers of the Greek communion? 

The people, nevertheless, are eminently brave, benevo- 
lent, spiritual, hospitable, enterprising ; they imitate hap- 
pily, speak elegantly, and possess a magnificent language, 
without the admixture of any peculiar dialects, even among 
the lowest orders. 

The stains which disfigure this character owe their origin 
to the ancient government of Russia, or to its civilization, 
which is false ; and not only is this civilization false be- 
cause it is human, but also because — and in this lies the 
completion of misfortune — it coincided with the period of 
the greatest corruption of the human mind, and because 
circumstances have placed in contact, and, so to speak, 
amalgamated the Russian people with that nation which 
has been at once the most terrible instrument, and the 
most deplorable victim of this corruption. 

All civilization commences with the priesthood, by re- 
ligious ceremonies, by miracles, even, whether true or 
false. There never has been, there never will be, there 
never can be, any exception to this rule. And the Rus- 
sians also had begun like all other peoples ; but the work, 
unfortunately interrupted by the causes I have pointed out, 

there is really a converting power in your religion." Voltaire, 
on the other hand, has said : — 

" God visited the world, but changed it not." 

Desastre de Lisbonne. 
Genius condemned to utter only absurdities, on account of the 
crime of being unfaithful to its mission, has always been to me a 
most gratifying spectacle. I have no pity for it. Why did it 
betray its Master ? Why did it violate its instructions ? Was it 
sent to lie ? 

a Hist, de la Decad. &c. torn. xiii. ch.lxvii. p. 10. 



CHAP. VI.] OBSERVATIONS ON RUSSIA. 289 

was resumed at the commencement of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, under the most melancholy auspices. 

It was in the dregs of the regency that the deadened 
germe of Russian civilization began to be restored, and 
the first lessons this great people heard in the new lan- 
guage it acquired, were blasphemies. 

There may now be remarked, I am aware, a movement 
in the opposite direction, calculated, so far, to console a 
friendly observer ; but how efface the anathema of an 
earlier day ? It is deeply to be regretted that the most 
powerful of the Sclavonic families should have withdrawn 
through ignorance from the great constituent sceptre, to 
throw itself into the arms of those miserable Greeks of the 
low empire, those detestable sophists, prodigies of pride 
and nullity, whose history can only be read by a man 
practised in overcoming the strongest possible disgust, and 
who, in fine, have presented, during the period of a thou- 
sand years, the hideous spectacle of a Christian monarchy 
degraded to reigns of eleven years. 

It is not necessary to have lived long in Russia to 
perceive what is wanting to its inhabitants. It is some- 
thing profound, which is profoundly felt, and which the 
Russian himself may behold in the average reign of his 
rulers, which exceeds not thirteen years, whilst the Chris- 
tian reign nearly reaches double this number, and will 
attain it ere long, or even exceed it, whenever a wise 
course of conduct is pursued. In vain would foreign 
blood, raised to the throne of Russia, believe itself entitled 
to entertain more exalted hopes, in vain would the most 
amiable virtues be contrasted on this throne with the 
rough manners of earlier days. Reigns are not shortened 
by the faults of sovereigns, which would be obviously un- 
just, but by those of the people {supra, book iii. c. v.). In 
vain will the sovereigns make the noblest efforts, seconded 
by those of a generous people, who reckon not with their 
rulers, all these great endeavours of the most legitimate 
national pride will be null, if not fatal. The Russian 
cannot recall the ages that are gone ; the creative, the 
divine sceptre, has not sufficiently rested on his head ; and 

u 



290 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



in this, profoundly blinded as he is ; he glories ! Never- 
theless, the law by which he is debased, emanates from so 
high a source, that it is impossible for him to avert its 
consequences, otherwise than by yielding it obedience. In 
order to rise to the level of European civilization and 
science, there is only one way open to him, — that from 
which he has turned aside. 

Often has the Russian heard the voice of calumny, and 
too often also that of ingratitude. He was entitled, no 
doubt, to exclaim against those writers without delicacy, 
who repaid with insults the most generous hospitality ; 
but let him not deny his confidence to sentiments of quite 
an opposite character. Respect, attachment, gratitude, 
have surely no wish to deceive him. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FURTHER PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE EASTERN 
EMPIRE. 

The Pope is invested with five characters, that are quite 
distinct : he is Bishop of Rome, Metropolitan of the Sub- 
urban Churches, Primate of Italy, Patriarch of the West, 
and, finally, Sovereign Pontiff. The Pope has never ex- 
ercised over the other patriarchates any other powers than 
those resulting from the last-named dignity ; so that, ex- 
cept when there occurred some affair of high importance, 
some signal abuse, or some appeal in a case of the greatest 
consequence, the Sovereign Pontiffs interfered but little in 
the ecclesiastical administration of the Eastern Churches ; 
and this was most unfortunate, not only for them, but for 
all the states in which they were established. It may be 
said that the Greek Church, from its origin, carried in 
its bosom a germe of division, which was not completely 
developed till twelve centuries had elapsed, but which al- 
ways existed under forms less glaring and less decisive, 
and which consequently could be borne with. a 

* St. Basil even speaks somewhere of the pride of the Western 



CHAP. VII.] THE EASTERN EMPIRE. 



291 



This religious division became still more deeply rooted 
through the political opposition created by the Emperor 
Constantine. Mutually fortifying each other, those two 
evils ceased not to repel the union which w r as so neces- 
sary, against the formidable enemies who were advancing 
from the east towards the north. Let us have recourse 
once more, on this point, to the respectable author of the 
Letters on History : a " It is certain/' says he, " that if 
the Emperor of the East and the Emperor of the West had 
united their efforts, they would inevitably have driven back 
to the deserts of Africa those people (the Saracens), whom 
they must have dreaded to see established amongst them ; 
but there was a jealousy between the two empires which 
nothing could destroy, and which showed itself still more 
decidedly during the crusades. The schism of the Greeks 
imparted to them a religious antipathy against Rome, and 
this antipathy always continued, even though contrary to 
their interests/' 

The truth of these remarks is very obvious. If the 
Popes had possessed the same authority over the eastern 
empire as over the west, not only would they have ex- 
pelled the Saracens but the Turks also. All the evils 
which these peoples have inflicted on us would not have 
taken place. The Mahomet, the Solyman, the Amurat, 
&c. would be names unknown amongst us. That French 
people, who allow themselves to be led astray by sophistry, 
would bear sway at Constantinople and in the Holy City. 
The assizes of Jerusalem, which are now no more than a 
monument of history, would be quoted and observed in the 
place where they were written ; the French language (and 
the other languages of Europe) would be spoken in Pales- 
tine. The arts and sciences, together with civilization, 

Church, which he calls 0$PTN AYTIKHN. (If I am not mistaken, 
this passage occurs in his work on the advantage that may be de- 
rived from profane books for the good of religion.) Nothing, not 
even sanctity, could wholly extinguish the natural state of war 
which divided the two states and the two churches. This state 
of things resulted from politics, and is traceable to the days of 
Constantine. 

a Tom. ii. lettre xlv. 

u 2 



292 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



would give dignity and splendour to those countries of 
Asia, of old the garden of Europe, to-day but thinly peo- 
pled, abandoned to ignorance, to despotism, to the plague, 
to every species of degradation. 

If the blind pride of these countries had not constantly 
resisted the Sovereign Pontiffs ; if the Popes had been able 
to control the unworthy emperors of Byzantium, or at least 
to command their respect, they would have saved Asia, as 
they have saved Europe, which owes them everything, 
although it appears to forget the benefit. 

For a long time, torn to pieces by the barbarians of the 
north, Europe beheld itself threatened with the greatest 
evils. The formidable Saracens were rushing upon it, and 
already its most beautiful provinces were attacked, con- 
quered, or encroached upon. Already masters of Syria, of 
Egypt, of Tingitania, of Numidia, they had added to their 
conquests of Asia and Africa a considerable part of Greece, 
Spain, Sardinia, Corsica, Apulia, Calabria, and a part of 
Sicily. They had laid siege to Eome, and burnt its 
suburbs. In fine, they had invaded France ; and, so early 
as the eighth century, it was all over with Europe, had not 
the genius of Charles Martel and of Charlemagne stayed 
the torrent. The new enemy was not like the rest ; the 
noble children of the north could become accustomed to us, 
learn our languages, and unite with us, in fine, by the 
triple tie of laws, of marriage, and of religion. But the 
disciple of Mahomet does not belong to us in any way ; he 
is thoroughly alien, incapable of associating and of mixing 
with us. The Turks — disdainful and haughty spectators 
of our civilization, our arts, and our sciences, as well as 
mortal enemies of our worship — are, to-day, what they were 
in 1454, a horde of Tartars encamped on European ground. 
War between us and them is natural, peace the reverse. 
As soon as the Christian and the Mussulman come in 
contact, the one or the other must yield or perish. 

" Entre ces ennemis, il n'est point de traite." 
" Between such enemies there can be no treaty." 

Happily, the Tiara has saved us from the Crescent. The 



CHAP. VII.] THE EASTERN EMPIRE. 



293 



former has never ceased to oppose the latter power, to do 
battle with it, to raise up enemies against it, band them 
together, encourage, maintain, and guide them. If we 
possess freedom, learning, and Christianity, to the tiara we 
are indebted for these benefits. 

Among the means employed by the Popes to repel Ma- 
hometanism, we must distinguish that of giving the lands 
usurped by the Saracens to the first who should be able to 
dispossess them. And what better could be done when the 
usurper no longer appeared ? Was there any more eligible 
means of rendering legitimate the birth of a sovereignty ? 
And can it be believed that this institution was not a little 
more valid than the will of the people, that is, the will of a 
handful of factious persons under the control of one ? But 
when there is question of lands given by the Popes, our 
modern reasonings never fail to transfer the whole public 
law of modern Europe to the midst of the deserts, of the 
anarchy, the invasions, and the fluctuating sovereignties of 
the middle ages ; this of necessity can only produce the 
strangest paralogisms. 

Let history be read with unbiassed eyes, and it will be 
seen that the Popes did all it was in their power to do in 
those unfortunate times. It will be seen, particularly, that 
they even surpassed themselves in the war they waged with 
Mahometanism. 

" So early as the ninth century, when the formidable 
army of the Saracens appeared to be on the point of de- 
stroying Italy, and of making a Mahometan village of the 
capital of the Christian world, Pope Leo IV., assuming in 
this danger an authority which the generals of the Emperor 
Lothaire seemed to have abandoned, showed himself worthy, 
by defending Rome, of ruling over it as its sovereign. He 
fortified the city, armed the soldiers, and visited in person 
all the posts. ... He was born a Roman. The courage 
of the first ages of the republic lived again in him, at a 
time marked by cowardice and corruption. Such is a beau- 
tiful monument of ancient Rome when found, as happens 
sometimes, amidst the ruins of the modern city/' a 

a Voltaire, Essai sur les Moeurs, torn. ii. ch. xxviii. 



294 



THE POPE. 



[book tit 



But in the end all resistance would have been vain, and 
the ascendancy of Islainism would infallibly have been esta- 
blished, if we had not been saved anew by the Popes, and 
by the crusades of which they were the authors, the pro- 
moters, and the guides, as much, alas ! as the ignorance 
and the passions of men permitted. The Popes discovered, 
as if with the eyes of Hannibal, that, in order to repel or 
completely to disable a formidable and extravasated power, 
it is by no means sufficient to provide for self-defence at 
home, but that it is necessary to attack it in its own terri- 
tories. The crusaders, rushing on Asia at their desire, 
soon gave the sultans other thoughts than that of invading 
or even of insulting Europe. 

Those who say that the crusades were undertaken by the 
Popes only as wars of devotion, do not appear to have read 
the discourse of Urban II. to the Council of Clermont. 
The Popes never closed their eyes on Mahometanism until 
it fell of itself into that lethargic sleep which has freed us 
for ever of all disquietude in regard to it. But it is very 
remarkable that the last, the decisive blow, was struck, by 
the hand of a Pope. On the 7th October, 1571, was fought 
that ever-memorable battle — " the most terrible naval en- 
gagement that ever took place. That day so glorious for 
the Christians was the epoch of the decline of the Turks. 
It cost them more than men and ships, the loss of which 
can be repaired. They lost that power of opinion which is 
the principal power of conquering nations — a power which, 
once acquired, when lost, is never recovered/' a " That 
immortal day humbled the Ottoman pride, and undeceived 
the universe, which believed the Turkish fleets to be in- 
vincible/' 15 

a M. de Bonald. Legislation Primitive, torn. iii. p. 288. Disc. 
Politiq. sur l'Etat de l'Europe, sec. viii. 

b These last expressions belong to the celebrated Cervantes, 
who was in the battle of Lepanto, and even had the honour to be 
wounded there. — Don Quixote, part i. ch. xxxix. Madrid, 1799, 
in 16mo. torn. iv. p. 40. In the preface to the second part, Cer- 
vantes returns to the subject of this celebrated battle, which he 
calls la mas alta occasion que vieron los sighs pasados, los pre- 
sentes, ni esperan ver los venidores. — Ibid. torn. v. p. 8, edition of 
Don Pelicer. 



CHAP. VIII.] 



RECAPITULATION. 



295 



But to whom was Christendom indebted for this battle of 
Lepanto, the eternal honour of Europe, the epoch of the 
downfall of the Crescent, and which the mortal enemy of 
human dignity alone could attempt to undervalue ? a To 
the Holy See. The conqueror of Lepanto was not so much 
Don Juan of Austria as Pius V., of whom Bacon has said, 
"I am astonished that the Roman Church has not yet 
canonized this great man/' b In conjunction with the king 
of Spain and the republic of Venice, he attacked the Otto- 
mans ; he was the author and the soul of that glorious 
enterprise, which he aided by his counsels, by his influence, 
by his treasures, and by his arms even, which showed them- 
selves at Lepanto in a way quite worthy of the Sovereign 
Pontiff. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION OF THIS BOOK. 

Men of enlightened conscience and good faith can no 
longer doubt that it was Christianity which formed Euro- 
pean monarchy — a wonderful thing that is too little ad- 
mired. But without the Pope, there is no true Christianity ; 
— without the Pope, the Divine institution loses its power, 
its Divine character, and its converting influence ; — without 
the Pope, it is nothing better than a system, a human be- 
lief, incapable of penetrating and modifying the heart, to 
render man susceptible of a higher degree of science, of 
morality, of civilization. Every sovereignty, on whose fore- 
head the finger of the great Pontiff has not impressed its 
virtue, will always be inferior to the rest, as well in the 
duration of its reigns as in the character of its dignity and 
the forms of its government. Every nation, even although 

Whoever would know more about this battle, may read the 
description of it in the work of Gratiani, De Bello Cyprio. Rome, 
1664, in 4to. 

a "What was the fruit of the battle of Lepanto?" .... It 
appeared " that the Turks had gained it." — Volt. Essai sur les 
Moeurs, &c. torn. v. ch. clxi. How ridiculous ! 

b In the dialogue De Bello Sacro. 



296 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



Christian, which has not sufficiently experienced the con- 
stituent action of the Holy See, will in like manner, cceteris 
paribus, never cease to be inferior to all others ; and every 
separated nation, after having been impressed with the Ca- 
tholic seal, will feel that there is something wanting to it, 
and will sooner or later be brought back by reason or mis- 
fortune. There is for each people a mysterious but visible 
connection between the duration of reigns and the perfec- 
tion of the religious principle. There is no king by the will 
of the people, since the average duration of the lives of 
Christian princes is greater than that of other men, not- 
withstanding the accidents peculiar to their state ; and this 
phenomenon will become still more striking in proportion 
as they shall more powerfully protect the vivifying worship ; 
for there may be more or less sovereignty, just as there may 
be more or less nobility. a The faults of the Popes, infinitely 

a Nobility, being nothing else than a prolongation of sovereignty, 
magnum Jovis incrementum, it reproduces in miniature all the 
characteristics of its parent, and is not, especially, either more or 
less human than the sovereignty from which it springs : for it is 
an error to believe that, properly speaking, sovereigns can en- 
noble ; they can only sanction the nobility that nature has con- 
ferred. True nobility is the natural guardian of religion ; it is 
akin to the priesthood, and ceases not to protect it. Appius 
Claudius exclaimed in the Roman senate, " Religion is the care 
of the patricians, — Auspicia sunt patrum." And Bourdaloue, 
fourteen centuries later, said in a Christian church, " Sanctity, in 
order to be eminent, can find no groundwork better adapted to it 
than grandeur." — Serm. sur la Concep. ;p. 11. Both ideas are 
the same, each being clothed respectively in the colours of the 
age in which they were expressed. Woe to the people whose 
nobles abandon national dogmas. France, which gave all great 
examples for good or for evil, has just proved this to the world ; 
for that bacchante, called the French revolution, and which, even 
now, has only changed its garb, is the daughter, born of the im- 
pious intercourse of the French nobility with the philosophism of 
the eighteenth century. The disciples of the Alcoran say, " that 
one of the signs of the end of the world will be the advancement 
of persons of low condition to the highest dignities." — Pococke, 
quoted by Sale, Obs. Hist, et Crit. sur le Mahom. sec. iv. This 
is an oriental exaggeration, which a woman of much wit has 
reduced to the measure of European sobriety (Lady Mary 
Wortley Montague's works, torn. iv. pp. 223, 221). It appears 



CHAP, tin.] RECAPITULATION". 



2.97 



exaggerated or misrepresented, and which in general have 
redounded to the advantage of mankind, are besides only 
the human alloy inseparable from every temporal mixture ; 
and when everything has been well examined and weighed 
in the scales of the coldest and most impartial philosophy, 
it remains demonstrated, that the Popes icere the founders, 
the tutors, the saviours, and the real constituent minds of 
the social state of Europe. 

But, as there are defects in every imaginable govern- 
ment, I by no means maintain that the sacerdotal regimen 
is faultless in the political order ; in regard to this point, 
I propose to the good sense of Europeans two reflections 
which have always appeared to me to be of the greatest 
weight. 

The first is, that this government ought not to be 
judged of by itself, but in its relation with the Catholic 
world. If it be necessary, as it evidently is, to maintain 
entirety and unity, and, if it may be so expressed, to make 
the same blood circulate in the remotest veins of an un- 
certain, however, that in the case of nobility, as well as sove- 
reignty, there is a hidden relation between religion and the dura- 
tion of families. The anonymous author of an English novel, 
entitled The Forester, extracts from which only I have been able 
to see, has made remarkable observations on the decline of 
families, and the variations of property in England, which I call 
to mind, without being entitled to pronounce an opinion in regard 
to them. " There must," says he, " be something radically and 
alarmingly bad in a system which in one century had destroyed 
hereditary succession and known names, more than all the de- 
vastations produced by the civil wars of York and Lancaster, and 
of the reign of Charles I. had done, perhaps, in the three pre- 
ceding centuries together," &c. — Anti-Jacobin Review and Maga- 
zine, Nov. 1803, No. lviii. p. 249. 

If the ancient English families had really perished, in the 
period of about one century, in numbers alarmingly considerable 
(which I venture not to affirm on the testimony of one wn ter 
it would only be the accelerated and consequently more visible 
effect of a judgment, the execution of which would, nevertheless, 
have commenced immediately after the fault. Why should not 
the nobility be less preserved, after having rejected the religion 
which preserves? Why should it be better treated than its 
masters, whose reigns have been abridged ? 



298 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK III. 



mense body, all the imperfections resulting from this kind 
of Roman theocracy ought not to be otherwise considered 
than as, for instance, the humidity produced by a steam- 
engine in the building which encloses it. The second 
reflection is, that the government of the Popes is a 
monarchy, like all other monarchies, if it be simply con- 
sidered as a government by one chief. Now what evils 
does not the best constituted monarchy produce ? All 
books of morality teem with sarcasms against courts and 
courtiers. There is no end to animadversions on the du- 
plicity, the perfidy, the corruption of people about courts ; 
and Voltaire, surely, had not the Popes in view, when he 
said with so much delicacy, 

" wisdom of Heaven ! I believe thou art most profound ; 
But to what stupid tyrants hast thou not abandoned the world ! " a 

Nevertheless, when every species of criticism has been 
exhausted, and when have been thrown, as is reasonable, 
into the other scale of the balance, all the advantages of 
monarchy, what is the final result ? It is the best, the 
most durable of governments, and the most natural to man. 
Let the court of Eome be judged in the same way. It is 
a monarchy, the only possible form of government for 
ruling the Catholic Church ; and whatever may be the 
superiority of this monarchy over others, b it is impossible 

a " sagesse du ciel ! je te crois tres-profonde ; 

Mais a quels plats t}Tans as-tu livre le monde ? " 
He said, on the contrary, in speaking of modern Rome : 
" Les citoyens, en paix sagement gouvernes, 

Ne sont plus conquerants, et sont plus fortunes." 
" The citizens in peace, and wisely governed, 
Are conquerors no longer, but are more fortunate." 
b The government of the Pope is the only one in the world 
which never had a model, and of which there will never be an 
imitation. It is an elective monarchy, of which the titulary, 
always aged, and always in the state of celibacy, is elected by a 
small number of electors, themselves elected by his predecessors, 
all in celibacy, like himself, and chosen without any necessary 
consideration for their birth, their wealth, or even their country. 

If we examine attentively this form of government, we shall 
see that it excludes the inconveniences of elective, without losing 
the advantages of hereditary monarchy. 



CHAP. VIII.] RECAPITULATION. 



299 



that human passions should strive around any focus of 
power whatsoever, and not leave traces of their action, which 
prevent not the government of the Pope from being the 
mildest and the most moral of all governments, as the 
much greater evils generated by temporal monarchy hin- 
der it not from being the best of governments. 

In concluding this discussion, I declare that I protest 
alike against all kinds of exaggeration. Let the pontifi- 
cal power be confined within its just limits ; but let not 
these limits be torn up and displaced at the bidding of 
passion and of ignorance ; above all, let not opinion be 
alarmed by vain fears. Far from dreading at this moment 
the excess of spiritual power, it is the contrary extreme we 
have to dread ; in other words, that the Popes should want 
the strength necessary to bear the immense burthen im- 
posed on them, and that from yielding too much, they 
should lose the power as well as the habit of resistance. 
Let men honestly accord what is due to them. The Sove- 
reign Pontiff, on his part, understands what he owes to 
temporal authority, which will never have a more intrepid 
and powerful defender. But he must also know how to 
defend his rights ; and if any prince, by a trait of wisdom 
not inferior to that of the son who threatened his father 
that he would make himself be hanged in order to dis- 
honour him, dared to threaten his parent with schism in 
order to extort some undue concession, the successor of 
St. Peter might very properly reply to him what was 
written of old by a celebrated poet : — 

" Do you desire to abandon me ? Well, depart ! Follow 
the passion which leads you astray : expect not, that in 
order to retain you near me, I shall have recourse to sup- 
plications. Depart ! To give me the honour due to me, 
other men will remain ; But, above all, God will re- 
main TO ME." a 

The prince would think of it. 

a $>evye /laX', it toi ^vfxbg i-KkaavraC ovde a eywye 
Aivoofiai uvsk' tfielo jjikveiv' 7rap' tjxoiye ko.1 dXXoi, 
Ot ks fie TifirjaovaL- MAAI2TA AE MHTIETA ZEY2. 

Homer, Iliad, i. 173, 175, 



300 



BOOK IV. 

THE POPE IN HIS RELATION WITH THE CHURCHES 
CALLED SCHISMATICAL. 



CHAPTER I. 

THAT EVERY SCHISMATIC CHURCH IS PROTESTANT — AFFINITY 
OF THE TWO SYSTEMS TESTIMONY OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

It is a fundamental truth in all questions of religion, 
that every Church which is not Catholic is Protestant. In 
vain has it been attempted to make a distinction between 
schismatic and heretical Churches. I know well what is 
meant ; but, in reality, the whole difference lies in words, 
and every Christian who rejects the communion of the Holy 
Father is Protestant, or will soon be so. 

What is a Protestant ? A man who protests. Now 
what matters it whether he protest against one or against 
several dogmas — against this one or against that one ? He 
may be more or less Protestant, but, nevertheless, he pro- 
tests. 

What observer has not been struck with the exceeding 
great favour Protestantism enjoys among the Russian 
clergy, although, if written dogmas were held to be any- 
thing, it ought to be hated on the Neva as well as on 
the Tiber? This arises from the fact that all separated 
societies unite in hatred of the unity which crushes them. 
Each of them has written on its banners — 

Whoever is an enemy of Rome is my friend. 

Peter I., at the commencement of last century, having 
caused to be printed for his subjects a catechism contain- 



CHAP. I.] 



SCHISMATIC CHURCHES. 



SOI 



ing all the dogmas he approved of, this piece was translated 
into English* in the year 1725, with a preface which it is 
worth while to quote. 

" This catechism/' says the translator, " breathes the 
spirit of the great man by whom it was composed." b This 
prince overcame two enemies more terrible than the Swedes 
or the Tartars — I mean ignorance and superstition, fa- 
voured by most inveterate and insatiable habit. ... I 
flatter myself that this translation will render more easy 
the approximation of the English and Russian bishops, 
in order that, by their united efforts, they may be better 
able to thwart the atrocious and sanguinary designs of the 
Roman clergy. . . . The Russians and the Reformers 
agree on several articles of faith as much as they differ 
from the Roman Church. d . . . The former deny purga- 
tory/ . . . and our fellow-countryman Covel, doctor of 
Cambridge, has learnedly proved, in his Memoirs on the 
Greek Church, how much the transubstantiation of the 
Latins differs from the Greek supper."* 

a The Russian catechism, composed and published by order 
of the Czar ; to which is annexed a short account of the Church 
government and ceremonies of the Muscovites. London, Mea- 
dows, 1725, in 8vo. by Jenkin. Thorn. Philips, pp. 4 & 66. 

, b The translator speaks here of a catechism as he would speak 
of an ukase, which the emperor might publish in regard to 
matters of law or police. This opinion, which is correct, ought 
to be remarked. 

c It may cause astonishment, that so late as 1725, anything so 
very extravagant could be printed in England. I shall under- 
take, nevertheless, to point out passages still more astonishing in 
the works of the first Anglican doctors of our days. 

d On this point, the translator is both wrong and right. He 
is wrong, if we consider only the written professions of faith, 
which are almost the same in the Latin and Russian Churches, 
and equally different from the Protestant confessions ; but, if we 
come to practice and internal belief, the translator is right. What 
is called the Greek faith, is removing every day farther from 
Rome, and drawing nearer to Wittemberg. 

e I know nothing about it, and I believe in my conscience that 
the Russian clergy do not know any better than I do. 

f Here we have Anglican theologians affirming that so early as 
the beginning of last century, the faith of the Roman and that of 



302 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



What tenderness and what confidence ! The frater- 
nity is evident. Here the power of hatred makes itself 
be felt in a really fearful manner. The Russian Church 
professes, as ours does, the real presence, the necessity of 
confession and sacerdotal absolution, the same number of 
sacraments, the reality of the eucharistic sacrifice, the in- 
vocation of saints, the veneration of images, &c. ; Pro- 
testantism, on the contrary, makes profession of rejecting, 
of abhorring even, these doctrines and these practices ; 
nevertheless, if it meets with them in a Church separated 
from Rome, it is no longer shocked at them. This wor- 
ship of images, especially, so solemnly declared idolatrous, 
loses all its venom, even although it should be exagge- 
rated to such a degree as to have become the whole of 
religion. The Russian is separated from the Holy See ; 
this is enough for the Protestant, who beholds in him 
only a brother — another Protestant ; all dogmas are null, 
with the exception of hatred to Rome. This hatred is 
the only but universal tie between all separated Churches. 

An archbishop of Twer, who died only two or three 
years ago, published in 1805 an historical work, in Latin, 
on the four first ages of Christianity ; and in this book 
(which I have already quoted, in treating of celibacy) he 
advances, without circumlocution, that a great portion of 
the Russian clergy is Calvinist. 3, This text is by no means 
ambiguous. 

the Russian Church, on the subject of the eucharist, were no 
longer the same. It would be quite wrong, therefore, to complain 
of the prejudices of Catholics on this subject. 

a Or, if we must have a word-for-word translation, " that a 
great portion of the Russian clergy cherishes and celebrates to 
excess the Calvinist system." — Haec sane est disciplina ilia (Cal- 
vini) quam plurimi de nostris (sic) tantopere laudant dea- 
mantque. — Methodii Archiep. Twer, Liber Historicus de Rebus 
in Primitiva Eccl. Christ. &c. in 4to. Mosquae, 1805. Typis Sanc- 
tissimae Synodi, cap. vi. sect. i. § 79, p. 168. Every man who has 
been able to take a near view of things, will have no doubt that 
by these words, plurimi de nostris, must be understood every 
priest of this church who knows Latin or French, unless in his 
inmost heart he lean to a quite opposite side, which is by no 
means unheard of among learned persons of this order. 



CHAP. I.] 



SCHISMATIC CHURCHES. 



303 



The clergy, in the whole course of their ecclesiastical 
education, study no other than Protestant books ; a habit 
of hate removes them from Catholic works, notwithstand- 
ing the exceeding great affinity of doctrines. Bingham, 
especially, is their oracle ; and so far do they go in this 
respect, that the prelate I have just quoted appeals quite 
seriously to Bingham, in order to establish that the Rus- 
sian Church teaches only the pure faith of the Apostles* 

It is something quite extraordinary, and very little known 
in the rest of Europe, that a Russian bishop, in order to 
establish the perfect orthodoxy of his Church, should 
appeal to the testimony of a Protestant doctor. And he 
himself — after having, for form's sake, blamed this leaning 
to Calvinism — refrains not from styling Calvin a great 
man : b a strange expression in the mouth of a bishop, 
speaking of an heresiarch, and which has never escaped him 
in the whole course of his work in regard to a Catholic 
doctor. 

Elsewhere he tells us that during fifteen centuries the 
doctrine of Calvin was almost unknown in the Church? 
This modification will also seem curious ; but in the rest 
of the book he shows equally little scruple : he openly 
attacks the doctrine of the sacraments, and proves himself 
completely Calvinist. 

The work, as I have already observed, having issued 
even from the presses of the Synod, and with its formal 
approbation, there can be no doubt but it represents the 
doctrine generally prevalent among the clergy, with excep- 
tions which I hold in honour. 

a Methodius, ibid. sect. i. p. 206, note 2. 
b Magnum Virum, ibid. p. 168. 

c Doctrinam Calvini per M. et D. ann. in Ecclesia Christi pene 
inauditam. — Ibid. 

The Archbishop of Twer published this work in Latin, sure of 
not being criticised either by his brethren, who would never reveal 
a family secret, nor by men of the world, who would not under- 
stand it, and who, besides, would be no more concerned about the 
opinions of the prelate than about his person. It is impossible, if 
one has not witnessed it, to form an idea of the indifference of the 
Russians for this kind of men and things. 



304 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



I might quote other testimonies not less decisive, but I 
must keep within limits. I not only affirm that the Church 
in question is Protestant, but, moreover, that it is neces- 
sarily so, and that God would not be God if it were not. 
The bond of unity being once broken, there is no longer a 
common tribunal, nor consequently an invariable rule of 
faith. Everything resolves itself into private judgment and 
civil supremacy, the two things which constitute the essence 
of Protestantism. 

Instruction, besides, inspiring no alarm in Russia, and 
the same empire containing nearly three millions of Pro- 
testant subjects, innovators of all kinds have been able to 
profit by this advantage, to insinuate freely their opinions 
in all orders of the state, and all are agreed, even without 
knowing it ; for all protest against the Holy See, and this 
suffices to establish the common fraternity. 



CHAPTER II. 

ON THE PRETENDED IN VARIABLENESS OF DOGMA IN THE 
SEPARATED CHURCHES IN THE WELFTH CENTURY. 

Several Catholics, in deploring our fatal separation from 
the Photian Churches, do them the honour, nevertheless, 
to believe, that, with the exception of the small number of 
contested points, they have preserved the deposit of faith in 
all its integrity. They themselves boast of this, and speak 
emphatically of their invariable orthodoxy. It is worth 
while to examine this opinion, because, in clearing it up, 
we are led to important truths. 

All the Churches separated from the Holy See at the 
beginning of the twelfth century, may be compared to frozen 
carcases, the forms of which cold has preserved. This cold 
is the ignorance which was destined to last longer for them 
than for us ; for it has pleased God — for reasons it is well 
worth while to inquire into — to concentrate, until a new 
order of things shall arise, all human science in our western 
countries. 



CHAP. II.] 



UNITY. 



305 



But as soon as the warm breath of science shall have 
blown on those churches, there will happen what, accord- 
ing to the laws of nature, ought to happen: the ancient 
forms will be dissolved, and only dust will remain. 

I never inhabited Greece, nor any country of Asia, but 
I have long been an inhabitant of the world, and I have 
the good fortune to know some of its laws. A mathe- 
matician would be very unfortunate if he were obliged to 
calculate, one after another, all the terms of a long series : 
for this case, as well as for so many others, there are for- 
mulas which expedite the work. I have no need, there- 
fore, to know (although I acknowledge that I do not know 
it) what is done, and what is believed, here or there. I 
know, and this is sufficient, that if the ancient law still 
prevails in such or such a separated country, the light of 
science has not yet reached that country, and that if sci- 
ence has dawned upon it, its faith has disappeared ; this 
must not, however, as is pretty obvious, be understood to 
be a sudden, but gradual change, according to another 
law of nature, which, to use the language of the schools, 
admits not of leaps. Behold, then, the law, as certain, 
and as invariable as its author : 

NO RELIGION, EXCEPT ONE, CAN STAND THE TEST 
OF SCIENCE. 

This oracle is more sure than that of Calchas. a Science 
is a species of acid, which dissolves all metals except gold. 

Where do we find the professions of faith of the six- 
teenth century? 

In books. We have never ceased to say to Protestants : 
" You cannot stop on the side of a precipice ; you will roll 
down to the bottom." 

To-day, these Catholic predictions are found to be per- 
fectly justified. Let not those who have as yet made 

a As this work is intended for all who read, as well as for the 
learned, it may be as well to say that Calchas was a celebrated 
soothsayer, who followed the Grecian army to the siege of Troy, 
and foretold that the siege would last ten years. 

X 



306 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



only three or four steps in the same direction, boast of 
their pretended immobility ; they will soon behold them- 
selves hurrying downwards with accelerated motion. 

I swear it by eternal truth, and no European conscience 
will contradict me, Science and faith will never be allied 
out of unity. 

We know what good La Fontaine said one day in return- 
ing a New Testament a friend had induced him to read, — 
u I have read your New Testament, it is a pretty good 
book/' Provided we observe attentively, we shall see that 
to this confession is the Protestant faith almost reduced — 
to an indescribable, vague, and confused notion, which 
might be quite well expressed by these few words : " There 
may possibly be something Divine in Christianity." 

But when there is question of a detailed profession of 
faith, none are agreed. The ancient ecclesiastical formulas 
remain in books — a dead letter ; they are signed to-day, 
because they were signed yesterday ; but with all this, con- 
science has nothing to do. 

It is very important, however, to observe that the Pho- 
tian churches are farther removed from the truth than the 
other Protestant churches, for the latter have gone the 
whole round of error, whilst the former are only commencing 
the circuitous route, and must in consequence pass by Cal- 
vinism, perhaps even by Socinianism, before they return to 
unity. Every friend of unity, therefore, must desire that 
the ancient edifice among separatists should speedily crumble 
to pieces under the blows of Protestant science, in order 
that its place may remain open for the truth. 

There is, meanwhile, a great chance in favour of the 
churches called schismatical, and which may very much 
accelerate their return ; this chance lies in the conversion 
of Protestants, already far advanced, and which may be 
hastened more than we think by an ardent and pure desire, 
apart from all spirit of pride and contention. 

There is no believing to what a degree the churches that 
are simply schismatical seek support from the revolt and 
learning of Protestants. Ah ! if ever the same faith spoke 
English and French, the obstinate resistance to this faith 



CHAP. III. j ANGLICAN AND RUSSIAN SECTS. 307 

would speedily become, throughout all Europe, truly ridicu- 
lous, and — why should I not say it ? — unfashionable. 

I have already said why we ought not to attach any im- 
portance to the preservation of faith in the Photian 
churches, even although it were real, because they have not 
passed through the ordeal of science — the great acid has 
not yet touched them. Besides, what means the word faith, 
and what has it in common with external forms and written 
confessions ? Is there question of knowing only what is 
written ? 



CHAPTER III. 

FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS ARISING FROM THE POSITION OF 
THOSE CHURCHES : PARTICULAR REMARKS ON THE ANGLI- 
CAN AND RUSSIAN SECTS. 

Behold yet another law of nature : Nothing is changed 
except by mixture, and there is never mixture without 
affinity. The Photian churches are preserved in the midst 
of Mahometanism, as an insect is preserved in amber. 
How should they be altered, since nothing touches them 
that is capable of uniting with them ? There can be no 
commingling of Mahometanism and Christianity. But, if 
those churches (the Photian) were exposed to the action of 
Protestantism or Catholicism, with enough of the fire of 
science, they would disappear almost of a sudden. 

Now, as the nations may to-day, by means of languages, 
touch one another, although at a distance, we shall soon 
witness the great experience, already far advanced in Rus- 
sia. Our languages will reach those nations which boast 
their faith bound up in parchment, and in a twinkling we 
shall behold them drinking in copious draughts all the 
errors of Europe. But then we shall be tired of these errors, 
and this will probably shorten their delirium. 

When we consider the trials to which the Roman Church 
has been subjected by the attacks of heresy and by the 
mingling of barbarous nations which took place within it, 



308 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



we are struck with admiration, finding that in the midst of 
these formidable revolutions all its titles remain untouched, 
and trace their origin to the Apostles. By changing certain 
things in its external forms, it only proves its vitality, for 
everything that has life in the universe changes according 
to circumstances, in all that is not essential. God, having 
reserved these forms within his power, has given them up 
to time to be disposed of according to certain rules. This 
variation of which I speak is even an indispensable sign of 
life, absolute immobility belonging only to death. 

Let one of those separated peoples be subjected to a revo- 
lution like that which desolated France during a quarter of 
a century ; suppose a tyrannical power raging against the 
Church, slaying, plundering, dispersing the priests; and, 
particularly, tolerating, favouring all creeds except the na- 
tional one — this last will disappear like smoke. 

France, after the horrible revolution it experienced, re- 
mained Catholic ; in other words, whatever has not con- 
tinued Catholic is nothing. Such is the force of truth 
when subjected to the most terrible ordeal. Men, doubtless, 
may have been changed by this ordeal, but not doctrine ; 
because it is essentially unchangeable. 

It is quite the reverse with all false religions. As soon 
as ignorance has ceased to maintain their forms, and they 
are attacked by philosophical opinions, they fall into a state 
of dissolution, and hasten on with obviously accelerated 
motion to utter annihilation. 

And, as the putrefaction of large organized bodies pro- 
duces innumerable sects of miry reptiles, national religions, 
when putrefied, produce in like manner a multitude of reli- 
gious insects, which drag out on the same soil the remains 
of a divided, imperfect, and disgusting existence. 

This may be observed on all sides, and by this may Eng- 
land and Russia, particularly, account for the number and 
inexhaustible fecundity of the sects which pullulate within 
their immense territories. These sects are born of the pu- 
trefaction of a great body. Such is the order of nature. 

The Russian Church, above all, bears in its own bosom 
more enemies than any other ; Protestantism pervades it. 



CHAP. III.] ANGLICAN AND RUSSIAN SECTS. 



309 



Rascolnism* which might be called the illuminism of the 
rural districts, gathers strength every day ; already are its 
children numbered by millions, and the laws dare no longer 
interfere with them. Illuminism is the Rascolnism of the 
drawing-room, and seizes upon those more delicate viands 
which the grosser hand of the Rascolnic cannot reach. 

a An interesting memoir might be written on the Rascolnics. 
Restricted to the narrow limits of a note, I shall only say in re- 
gard to them what is indispensable in order to be understood. 

The word Rascolnic, in the Russian language, signifies literally 
schismatic. The schism designated by this generical expression 
originated in the ancient translation of the Bible, to which the 
Rascolnics cling tenaciously, and which contains texts that, ac- 
cording to them, are altered in the version made use of by the 
Russian Church. On this ground they call themselves (and 
who may hinder them?) men of the ancient faith, or old believers 
(staroversi). Whenever the people, possessing, unfortunately for 
themselves, the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, persist in 
reading and interpreting them, no aberration of private judg- 
ment need astonish. It would be too long to relate in detail the 
numerous superstitions which have been added co the original 
grievances of these bewildered men. The sect, soon after its 
commencement, was divided and subdivided, as always happens, 
to such a degree, that at this moment there are in Russia perhaps 
forty sects of Rascolnics. All are extravagant, and some abomi- 
nable. Besides, the Rascolnics protest en masse against the Russian 
Church, as the latter protests against the Roman. The motive, 
the argument, the right, are the same on both sides, so that any 
complaint on the part of the prevailing authority would be ridi- 
culous. Rascolnism neither alarms nor shocks the nation at large, 
any more than other false religions ; the higher classes think of 
it only to make sport of it. As for the priesthood, it never under- 
takes anything against the dissenters, because it knows its weak- 
ness, and that, moreover, the spirit of proselytism must be essen- 
tially wanting to it. Rascolnism does not extend beyond the 
ranks of the people ; but the people is really something, even if its 
numbers amounted only to thirty millions. Men who profess to be 
well informed already estimate the number of these sectaries at 
nearly the seventh of the whole people. But this I do not affirm. 
The government, which alone knows what to think on the mat- 
ter, says nothing about it, and it does well. It, moreover, treats 
the Rascolnics with unequalled prudence, moderation, and good- 
ness ; and, even although unfortunate consequences should be 
the result (which, God forbid !), it would always find consolation 
in the reflection that severity would not have succeeded better. 



310 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



Other still more dangerous influences are in operation, each 
in its sphere, and all are multiplying at the expense of the 
mass of the people, whom they devour. There are certainly 
great differences between the Anglican and Russian sects ; 
but the principle is the same — always the national religion, 
the life of which is declining, whilst the insects gain upon it. 

Why do we not find sects forming in France for instance, 
in Italy, &c. ? Because religion lives there in its integrity, 
and never gives ground. We may, indeed, behold, side by 
side with it, absolute incredulity, as a corpse may be seen 
beside a living man ; but never, as it possesses its full com- 
plement of life, will it produce anything impure without 
itself. It may, on the contrary, be propagated and multi- 
plied in other men, among whom it will still be itself, with- 
out being weakened or diminished, as the light of a torch 
passes to a thousand other torches. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ON THE DESIGNATION OF PHOTIAN, APPLIED TO THE 
SCHISMATICAL CHURCHES. 

Some readers will observe, perhaps, with a certain degree 
of surprise, the epithet Pkotian, of which I have constantly 
made use to designate the churches separated from Christian 
unity by the schism of Photius. If they behold in this 
the slightest desire to give offence, or the least sign of 
contempt, they would be very much deceived as to my 
intentions. What I have in view is, to give to things 
their true names, and this is a point of very great import- 
ance. I have already said, and nothing is more obvious, 
that every church separated from Rome is Protestant. 
And in fact, whether it protest to-day, or protested yester- 
day ; whether it protests on one dogma, or on two, or on ten, 
it is always true, that it protests against unity and univer- 
sal authority. Photius was born in this unity, and so com- 
pletely did he acknowledge the authority of the Pope, that 
he asked and insisted on obtaining from the Pope the title 



CHAP. IV.] PHOTIAN CHUECHES. 



311 



of (Ecumenical Patriarch, a title which becomes absurd, 
the moment it is no longer confined to one. It was only 
because he could not obtain this great title, of which he 
was ambitious, that he finally broke with the Sovereign 
Pontiff ; for it is quite essential to observe, there was by 
no means question of dogmas between the two churches at 
the commencement of the great and fatal schism. It was 
only after it was accomplished, that, in order to give it 
plausible grounds, disputes about dogmas were originated. 
The addition of Filioque to the creed had not at all gene- 
rated a quarrel with the Greeks. The Latin churches, 
established in great number at Constantinople, chanted 
this creed without exciting the least scandal. What more 
would we have? Two oecumenical councils were held at 
Constantinople after Filioque was added, without any 
complaint on the part of those attached to the Eastern 
Church. a These facts are not here brought to mind for 

a As there is question of " Filioque" it may be thought worth 
while to attend to the following observation. It is well known 
what an important part Platonism acted in the first ages of Chris- 
tianity. Now, the school of Plato maintained that the second 
person of his famous trinity proceeded from the first, and the third 
from the second. For the sake of brevity, I omit the authorities, 
which are incontestable. Arius, who had much frequented the 
Platonicians, although in reality he was less orthodox than they 
on the nature of the Divinity, found this idea admirably suited 
to him ; for it was his interest to accord everything to the Son 
except consubstantiality. The Arians, then, must have willingly 
held with the Platonicians (although on different principles), that 
the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son. Next came Macedonius, 
whose heresy was but a necessary consequence of that of Arius, 
and by his system he was inclined to the same belief. Abusing 
the celebrated passage, "All things were made by him, and without 
him nothing was made" he concluded from it, that the Holy Ghost 
was a production of the Son, who had made all. This opinion, 
therefore, being common to Arians of all classes, to the Macedo- 
nians as well as to the adherents of Platonism, in other words, 
uniting these different classes to a formidable portion of the 
learned of those times, the first council of Constantinople found 
it necessary to condemn it solemnly, and this it did in declaring 
the procession ex Patre. As to the procession ex Filio, it made 
no mention of it ; because it was not in discussion, because nobody 
denied it, and because, if the expression may be used, it was too 



312 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



the information of theologians, who cannot be ignorant of 
them, but for men of the world, who have but little idea of 
them, even in countries where it would be of great im- 
portance to know them. 

Photius, then, protested, as have done since the churches 
of the sixteenth century ; so that there are no other dif- 
ferences between the dissenting churches than those arising 
from the number of dogmas in dispute. As regards the 
principle of separation, they are the same. All of them 
rebelled against the mother Church, which they accused of 
error or usurpation. Now, the principle being the same, 
the consequences can only differ by the dates of their 
occurrence. All the dogmas will disappear successively, 
and all these churches will, in the end, become Socinian, 
— apostasy commencing always, and attaining its maturity, 
at first among the clergy, — a fact I would recommend to 
the attention of observers. 

As to the invariability of written dogmas, national for- 
mulas, vestments, mitres, crosses, genuflections, signs of 
the cross, &c, I shall only add one word in addition to 
what I have already said. Caesar and Cicero, if they could 
have lived to our days, would be clothed as we are ; their 
statues will always bear the toga and senatorial garment. 

Every separated church, therefore, being Protestant, it 
is right to class them all under the same denomination. 
Moreover, as the Protestant churches are distinguished 
among themselves by the names of their founders, by the 
names, more or less of the nations which received the pre- 
tended reformation, or by some particular symptom of the 
general malady, so that we say, such a one is Cahinist, is 
Lutheran, is Anglican, is Methodist, is Baptist, &c, it is 
necessary also that a particular denomination should dis- 
tinguish the churches which protested in the eleventh 
century; and assuredly we shall not find a more appro- 

much believed in. Such is the point of view under which, I con- 
ceive, must be considered the decision of the council; which, how- 
ever, excludes not any other argument employed in this question, 
a question, besides, which was decided previously to all theolo- 
gical discussion, by arguments drawn from the soundest ontology. 



CHAP. IV.] 



PHOTIAN CHURCHES. 



313 



priate name than that which is derived from the author 
of the schism. It is quite according to justice, that this 
fatal personage should give his name to the churches he 
led astray. They are Photian, therefore, as that of Ge- 
neva is Calvinist, as that of Wittemberg is Lutheran. I 
know that these particular denominations are displeasing 
to them," because conscience tells them, that every religion 
which bears the name of a man or a people, is necessarily 
false. Let each separated church, therefore, assume within 
its own borders the most beautiful names imaginable, — this 
is the privilege of national or individual pride ; who could 
deny it them ? 

Orbis me sibilat, at mihi plaudo 

Ipsa domi 

But all these delicacies of pride in torture are foreign to 
us, and we must not respect them. It is, on the contrary, 
the duty of all Catholic writers never to give, in their 
writings, any other name to the churches separated by 
Photius than that of Photian, not from a spirit of hatred 
and resentment (may God preserve us from such mean- 
ness !), but, on the contrary, from a sense of justice, of 
charity, of universal benevolence, in order that these 
churches, being constantly reminded of their origin, may 
learn from it their nullity. 

The duty here alluded to, is, in a special manner, im- 
peratively incumbent on French writers, 

Quos penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi ; 

the high prerogative of naming things in Europe being 
obviously confided to them as representatives of the nation 
of which they are the organs. Let them beware of giving 
to the Photian churches the names of Greek or Eastern 

a I know there are some among the Cahinists who take offence 
at being- called by this name. — Perpetuite de la Foi, xi. 2. The 
Evangelicals, whom Tolland calls Lutherans, although several 
among them reject this denomination. — Leibnitz, (Euvres, torn. v. 
p. 142. In Germany they prefer calling Evangelicals those whom 
several improperly term Lutherans. — The same, Nouv. Essais 
sur l'Entendement Humain, p. 461. Read very properly. 



314 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



Churches ; there is nothing so inapplicable as these deno- 
minations. They were appropriate before the schism, be- 
cause at that time they expressed only the geographical 
differences of several churches united under one supreme 
power ; but, ever since they came to express an indepen- 
dent existence, they are no longer tolerable, and ought not 
to be employed. 



CHAPTER V. 

IMPOSSIBILITY OF GIVING TO THE SEPARATED CHURCHES A 

NAME EXPRESSIVE OF UNITY. PRINCIPLES OF THE WHOLE 

DISCUSSION, AND PREDILECTION OF THE AUTHOR. 

This leads me to unfold a truth, on which sufficient 
attention is not bestowed, although it merits a great deal ; 
it is, that all these churches having lost unity, it has 
become impossible for them to be reunited under a com- 
mon and positive name. Shall we call them the Oriental 
Church ? There is certainly nothing less Oriental than 
Russia, which nevertheless forms a pretty considerable 
portion of the whole. I would even gay, that if it were 
absolutely necessary to place names and things in contra- 
diction, I would rather call this assemblage of separated 
churches the Russian Church. This name, indeed, would 
exclude Greece and the Levant ; but the power and dig- 
nity of the empire would, at least, cover the vice of lan- 
guage, which, do as you will, would still remain. Shall 
we say, for instance, Greek instead of Oriental Church? 
This name would be still less suitable. Greece, if I am 
not mistaken, is nowhere to be found out of Greece. 

As long as men could see only in the world Rome and 
Constantinople, the division of the Church naturally fol- 
lowed that of the empire, and men said the Western 
Church and the Eastern Church, just as they said the 
Emperor of the West and the Emperor of the East; 
and then, even, it must be carefully observed, this desig- 
nation would have been false and deceitful, if the same 



CHAP. V.] 



SEPARATED CHURCHES. 



315 



faith had not united the two churches under the supre- 
macy of a common chief ; since, in this supposition, they 
would not have had a common name, and that there is 
precisely question only of this name, which must be Ca- 
tholic and universal to represent the unity of the whole. 

Thus, then, we see that the churches separated from 
Rome have no longer a common name, and can be desig- 
nated only by a negative appellation, which declares not 
what they are, but what they are not ; and this being the 
case, the word Protestant alone is adapted to them all, and 
includes them all, because in its generality, as is most just, 
it embraces all the churches that have protested against 
unity. 

If we come to examine the matter in detail, we shall 
find that the title of Photian is as appropriate as that of 
Lutheran, Cahinist, &c. ; all these names admirably desig- 
nating the different species of Protestantism, comprised 
under the general head ; but never will there be found 
for them a positive and general name. 

It is known that these churches call themselves orthodox, 
and Russia will cause this ambitious epithet to be read 
in French throughout the West ; for, until recent times, 
little attention has been paid amongst us to these orthodox 
churches, all our religious polemics having been directed 
against Protestants. But Russia becoming every day 
more European, and the universal language being com- 
pletely neutralized in that great empire, it is impossible 
that some Russian pen, determined by one of those circum- 
stances that cannot be foreseen, should not, through the 
medium of the French language, attack the Roman 
Church ; and this is much to be desired, as no Russian 
can write against this Church without proving himself 
Protestant. 

Then, for the first time, we shall hear speak in our lan- 
guages of the orthodox Church ! On all sides it will be 
asked : " What is the orthodox Church 9 " And each 
Christian of the West, as he says, " It is mine apparently," 
will take leave to ridicule the error which addresses to itself 
a compliment it mistakes for a name. 



316 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



Every one being free to assume whatever name he 
pleases, Lais herself might write over her door : " The 
House of Artemisia." The great point is, to induce others 
to give us such or such a name, which is not quite so easy 
as to decorate ourselves with it by our own authority ; 
meanwhile there is no real name except that which is 
recognized. 

There occurs here an important observation. As it is 
impossible to assume a false name, it is equally so to confer 
one on others. Has not the Protestant party made the 
greatest efforts to fix upon us the name of Papists ? Not- 
withstanding, it has never been able to succeed ; as the 
Photian churches have never ceased to call themselves 
orthodox, whilst not a single Christian that was not 
engaged in the schism ever agreed so to name them. This 
appellation of orthodox has remained what it will always 
be, a singularly ridiculous compliment, since it is pronounced 
only by those who address it to themselves ; and that of 
Papist, also, is still what it always was — a mere insult, 
dictated by bad taste, and which, among Protestants even, 
is no longer made use of by persons of good breeding. 

But, to have done with this word orthodox. What i 
Church does not believe herself orthodox ? And what 
Church accords this title to others that are not in commu- 
nion with her ? A great and magnificent city of Europe 
lends itself to an interesting experiment, which I propose 
to all thinking men. A not very extensive space within 
it comprises churches of all the Christian communions. 
There is a Catholic Church, a Russian Church, an Arme- 
nian Church, a Calvinist Church, a Lutheran Church ; a 
little further on, we find an Anglican Church ; there is 
wanting only, I believe, a Greek Church. Say, then, to 
the first person you shall meet with on your way : " Show 
me the orthodox Church," each Christian will point to 
his own ; and here is already a great proof of a common 
orthodoxy. But if you say, " Show me a Catholic 
Church/' all will reply : " Behold it ! " pointing all to 
the same. Great and profound subject of meditation ! 
It alone has a name, in regard to which all men are 



CHAP. V.] 



SEPARATED CHURCHES. 



317 



agreed ; because, this name being designed to express 
unity (which is nowhere to be found except in the Ca- 
tholic Church), this unity cannot be ignored where it 
exists, nor supposed to be where it exists not. Friends 
and enemies — all are agreed on this point. There is no 
dispute about the name, which is as evident as the reality 
it expresses. From the origin of Christianity, the Church 
has borne the name it bears to-day, and never has its 
name varied ; it being impossible that any essence should 
disappear, or even be changed, without allowing its name 
to escape. If Protestantism bears always the same name, 
although its faith has varied immensely, it is because its 
name, being purely negative, and signifying only a renun- 
ciation of Catholicism, the less it believes and the more 
it protests, the more it is itself. Its name, therefore, be- 
coming every day more true, it must subsist until the 
moment when it shall itself perish, as perishes an ulcer 
with the last atom of living flesh it has devoured. 

The name Catholic, on the other hand, expresses an 
essence, a reality, which ought to have a name ; and as 
out of its divine sphere there can be no religious unity, 
there may be found, indeed, apart from it, churches, but 
by no means the Church. 

Never will the separated churches be able to confer on 
themselves a name expressive of unity, no power being 
competent, I should imagine, to give a name to that 
which does not exist. They will, therefore, assume na- 
tional names, or such as denote their pretensions, but 
which will never fail to express the quality which is 
wanting to these churches. They will call themselves 
reformed, evangelical, apostolical,* Anglican, Scotch, ortho- 

a The Anglican Church, to whose good sense and pride, what 
she considers bad company is repugnant, has recently taken up 
the idea of maintaining that she is not Protestant. Some mem- 
bers of her clergy have openly defended this thesis ; and as in this 
supposition they found they were without a name, it occurred to 
them to say they were Apostolical. It is a little too late for them, 
as is manifest, to confer on themselves a name, and Europe has 
lost so much of its politeness as not to believe in their patent of 
nobility. The parliament, however, lets them talk as they will 



318 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK TV. 



dox, &c, all names evidently false, and moreover accusing, 
because they are respectively new, peculiar, and even ri- 
diculous in the estimation of all who are not of the party 
that assumes them : this excludes all idea of unity, and 
consequently of truth. 

It is a general rule, that all sects have two names : 
one which they assume themselves, and another which the 
rest of mankind bestow upon them. Thus the Photian 
churches, which call themselves orthodox, are called by 
those not of their circle schismatic, Greek, or Oriental — 
words that are in reality synonymous, whatever they may 
be supposed to be. The first reformers no less boldly en- 
titled themselves evangelical, and the second reformed; 
but all who are not of them call them Lutheran and 
Cahinist. The Anglicans, as we have seen, aim at being 
called apostolical; but all Europe, and even a part of 
England, will make light of this distinction. The Russian 
Rascolnic gives himself the name of old believer ; but to 
every man who belongs not to his sect, he is merely Ras- 
colnic. The Catholic alone is named as he names him- 
self, and by this name is he known alike to all men. 

He who would not attribute any value to this obser- 
vation, must have studied but superficially the first chap- 
ter of the elements of metaphysics — that which treats of 
names. 

It is a very remarkable thing, that, every Christian 
being obliged to acknowledge, in the Apostles' creed, that 
he believes in the Catholic Church, no dissenting Church 
has ever dared to decorate itself with this title and call 
itself Catholic, although nothing would have been so easy 
as to say : "It is we who are Catholic ; " and that, 
besides, truth should be evidently connected with this qua- 
lity of Catholic. But in this case, as in a thousand others, 
all the calculations of ambition and of policy gave way 
to the invincible power of conscience. No innovator ever 
ventured to usurp the name of the Chuech ; whether it 
was that none of them considered that, by a change of 

about their title of Apostolical, whilst it ceases not to protest that 
it is Protestant. 



CHAP. V.] SEPARATED CHURCHES. 



319 



name, they condemned themselves, or whether they all per- 
ceived, although indistinctly, the absolute impossibility of 
such an usurpation. 

Like to that one book of which she is the only depo- 
sitary and the only legitimate interpreter, the Catholic 
Church is invested with a character so great, so imposing, 
so thoroughly inimitable, 3 - that none will ever think of 
disputing her name in opposition to the conscience of 
mankind. 

If, therefore, a man belonging to one of these dissenting 
churches takes up his pen against the Church, he ought 
to be stopped at the very title-page of his work, and thus 
interrogated : " Who are you f by what name are you 
known ? whence came you ? for whom do you speak ? " — 
" For the Church," you will say. — " What Church ? 
Constantinople, Smyrna, Bucharest, Corfu, Sfc. ? No 
church can be heard against the Church, any more 
than the representative of a particular province can be 
heard against a national assembly, presided over by the 
sovereign. You are justly condemned before being heard; 
you are put in the wrong without examination, because 
you are isolated." — " I speak/' he will perhaps say, " for 
all the churches you name, and for all which follow the 
same faith/' — "In this case, show your commissions. If 
you have no special commissions, there still exists the same 
difficulty ; you represent, indeed, several churches, but 
not the Church. You speak for provinces; the state 
cannot listen to you. If you pretend to act for all, by 
virtue of a mandate emanating from unity, name this 
unity ; make known to us the central point which consti- 
tutes it, and tell its name, which ought to be such as that 
mankind may recognize it without hesitation. If you can- 
not name this central point, there remains not to you even 
the resource of calling yourselves a Christian republic, for 
there is no republic that has not a common council, a senate, 
and chiefs who represent and govern the association! No- 

a These expressions of Rousseau in relation to the Gospel are 
well known. 

b This is of the highest importance. A thousand times may we 



320 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



thing of all this is to be found among you, and consequently 
you possess not any kind of unity, of hierarchy, or common 
association ; none of you has a right to speak in the name 
of all the rest. You believe you are an edifice ; you are 
nothing but stones." 

We are rather far, as may be seen, from discussing with 
one another questions of dogma or of discipline. There is 
question, before all, on the part of our most ancient adver- 
saries, of making good their legitimacy, and of telling us 
what they are. So long as they have not proved to us 
that they are the Church, they are in the wrong before 
having spoken ; and, in order to prove to us that they are 
the Church, they must show a centre of unity that may 
be seen by all eyes, and bearing a name at once positive 
and exclusive, listened to by all ears, and received by all 
parties. 

I resist the impulse which would hurry me into a pole- 
mical discussion : it is sufficient that I state principles ; 
they are as follows : — 

1. The Sovereign Pontiff is the necessary, the only, the 
exclusive basis of Christianity. To him belong the pro- 
mises j with him disappears unity, in other words, the 
Church. 

2. Every church that is not Catholic is Protestant. 
The principle being everywhere the same, — an insurrection 
against sovereign unity, — all the dissenting churches can 
only differ by the number of dogmas they have rejected. 

3. The supremacy of the Pope being the capital dogma, 

have heard it asked in certain countries, " Why could not the 
Church be presbyterian or collegiate ?" Let it be granted that it 
might be so, although the contrary has been demonstrated ; it is 
necessary, at least, to show it such before asking whether it be 
legitimate under this form. Every republic possesses sovereign 
unity, as well as all other forms of government. Let the Photian 
churches, therefore, be what they will, provided they be some- 
thing. Let them point to a general hierarchy, a synod, a council, 
a senate, as they may choose, of which they declare that they all 
hold, we shall then treat the question whether the Universal 
Church may be a republic or a college. Until that time, however, 
they must be considered null as regards universality. 



CHAP. V.] 



SEPARATED CHURCHES. 



321 



without which Christianity cannot subsist, all the churches 
which reject this dogma, to the importance of which they 
blind themselves, are agreed, without knowing it ; everything 
else is merely accessory, and hence their affinity, the cause 
of which they are ignorant of. 

4. The first symptom of the nullity which has struck 
these churches, is observable in the sudden and simultaneous 
loss of the power and the will to convert mankind, and to 
forward the work of God. They make not any conquests, 
and they even aifect to disdain them. They are barren, 
and justly so, having rejected the bridegroom* 

5. None of them can maintain, in its integrity, the 
creed which they possessed at the time of their separation. 
Faith no longer belongs to them. Habit, pride, obstinacy, 
may assume its place, and deceive the inexperienced. The 
despotism of an heterogeneous power which preserves these 
churches from all foreign contact, — the ignorance and bar- 
barism resulting from it, — may still for some time maintain 
them in a state of stiffness, which represents, at least, some 
forms of life ; but our languages and our sciences will reach 
them at length, and we shall behold them passing with 
accelerated motion through all the phases of dissolution 
which Calvinism and Lutheranism have already exhi- 
bited. 15 

6. In all these churches, the great changes I announce 
will begin by the clergy ; and the Church which will be the 
first to afford this great and interesting spectacle will be 
the Russian, because it is the most exposed to European 
influences. 

I write not for the sake of disputation. I respect what- 
ever is respectable, sovereigns, particularly, and nations. 

a We have even heard them boast of this sterility. 

b All this is said without pretending to affirm that the work 
has not already begun, that it has not even made great progress. 
I desire to be ignorant of it, and it is of little consequence. It is 
sufficient for me to know that things cannot proceed otherwise. 

c Of all the Photian churches, none ought to be so interesting 
to us as the Russian, which has become entirely European from, 
the time that the exclusive supremacy of its august chief happily 
separated it for ever from the suburbs of Constantinople. 

Y 



322 THE POPE. [book iy. 

I hate only hatred. But I affirm what is, what will be, 
what must be ; and if events contradict what I advance, I 
heartily invoke upon my memory the contempt and derision 
of posterity. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FALSE REASONINGS OF THE SEPARATED CHURCHES. — REFLEC- 
TIONS ON NATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS PREJUDICES. 

The separated churches are quite sensible that unity is 
wanting to them, that they possess no longer either govern- 
ment, or council, or common tie. There occurs at once an 
objection which must strike every mind. If difficulties 
arose in the Church, if any dogma were attacked, where 
would be the tribunal to decide the question, since those 
churches have no common chief, since it is impossible to 
hold a general council, as it cannot be convoked, as far as 
I am aware, either by the sultan or by any individual 
bishop ? In the countries subject to the schism, the most 
extraordinary plan imaginable has been fallen upon ; that 
of denying that there can be more than seven councils in the 
Church ; and of maintaining that everything was decided by 
those general assemblies which preceded the schism, and that 
no new councils ought to be convoked? 

If we object to them the most evident maxims of every 
imaginable government, if we ask them what idea they 
conceive of a human society, of any aggregation whatever, 
without a chief, without a common legislative power, and 
without a national assembly, they wander from the subject, 
and, after various circumlocutions, return to it and say (I 
have heard it a thousand times) that there is no need for 
more councils, and that everything has been decided, 

a As a matter of course, the eighth council is null, because it 
condemned Photius ; if there had been ten in the Church before 
his time, it would be demonstrated that the Church cannot be 
without ten councils. In general, the Church is infallible for 
every innovator until the moment she condemns him. 



CHAP. VI.] 



PREJUDICES. 



323 



They quote, even quite seriously, the councils which 
have decided that all was decided. And because these 
assemblies had wisely forbidden to return to questions that 
were settled, they hence conclude that other questions can 
neither be treated nor decided, even although Christianity 
should be attacked by new heresies. 

Whence it follows that the Church was wrong in as- 
sembling to condemn Macedonius, because it had pre- 
viously assembled to condemn Arius, and that it was 
likewise wrong in assembling at Trent to condemn Luther 
and Calvin, because everything was decided by the first 
councils. 

To several readers this may indeed have all the appear- 
ance of a fictitious narrative, but there is nothing more 
rigidly true. In all the discussions in which pride is in- 
terested, but particularly national pride, when it finds 
itself reduced to extremity by invincible arguments, it 
will swallow the most fearful absurdities, rather than give 
ground. 

We shall be gravely told that the Council of Trent is 
null, and proves nothing, because the Greek bishops were 
not present. a 

Fine reasoning, to be sure ! From this position it 
follows that every Greek council being, for the same 
reason, null, as regards us, because of our not being 
called to it, and the decisions of a common chief, more- 
over, not being recognized in Greece, or in the countries 
called by this name, no government, no general assembly, 
is possible in the Church, nor has she any means of treat- 
ing as a body, of her own interests, nor, in a word, does 
she possess moral unity. 

Pride having once adopted the principle, the most mon- 
strous consequences lose their terrors ; as I have just said, 
it stops at nothing. 

The word pride calls to my recollection two truths of a 

a And why the Greek hishops ? They ought to say, all the 
Photian bishops ; we cannot otherwise know what they mean. It 
is proper, besides, to observe by the way, that it entirely lay with 
those bishops themselves to be present at the Council of Trent. 

Y 2 



324 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



very different kind. The one is melancholy, and the other, 
consoling. 

One of the most able physicians of Europe, celebrated for 
his skill in treating the most humbling of our maladies, Dr. 
Willis, has said (and I would only quote his words on the 
authority of the highly respectable man from whom I hold 
them), " that he had met with two kinds of folly which 
were constantly rebellious against all the efforts of his art, 
the folly of pride and that of religion." 

Prejudices, alas ! which are also in reality a kind of 
madness, present exactly the same phenomenon. Those 
connected with religion are terrible, and not without 
reason are they a source of alarm to every observer who 
has studied them. An English theologian has laid it 
down as a general truth, " that a man is never reasoned 
out of his relic/ion." * 

There are, undoubtedly, exceptions to this fatal rule, 
but they are in favour of simplicity, good sense, purity, 
and, particularly, prayer. God does nothing for pride, nor 
even for science, which is also pride, if quite alone. 

But if the folly of pride comes to be superadded to that 
of religion ; if theological error is grafted on pride run mad, 
on ancient, national, immense, and always humbled pride, 
the two anathemas pointed out by the English physician 
being then united, no human power can avail to restore 
the patient. Nay, such a change would be the greatest of 
miracles, for the miracle of conversion surpasses all others, 
when there is question of nations. This miracle God 
himself formerly accomplished, eighteen centuries ago, and 
still accomplishes, sometimes, in favour of nations which had 
never known the truth ; but in favour of such as have abjured 
it, he has done nothing as yet. Who knows what he has 
decreed ? " To create, is but the play of his power ; to 
convert, is its effort/' 5 Evil resists him more strongly than 
non-existence. 

a This passage, as remarkable from its intrinsic value as be- 
cause it presents a happy example of the idiom of the English 
language, I have long treasured in my memory. It belongs, I 
believe, to Sherlock. 

b Deus qui dignitatem humani generis mirabiliter constituisti 



CHAP. VII.] GREECE AND ITS CHARACTER. 



325 



CHAPTER VII. 

OF GREECE AND ITS CHARACTER — ARTS, SCIENCES, AND 
MILITARY POWER. 

I believe we may say of Greece in general, what one of 
the gravest historians of antiquity said of Athens in parti- 
cular, " that its actions were indeed great, but nevertheless 
inferior to what fame had made them appear/'' a 

Another historian, the first of all, if I am not mistaken, 
in speaking of Thermopylae, has used the following words : 
" A place celebrated by the death rather than by the resist- 
ance of the Lacedaemonians/' 5 This extremely nice expres- 
sion is applicable to the general observation I have made. 

The military reputation of the Greeks, properly so called, 
was acquired at the expense of the peoples of Asia, whom 
the former have depreciated in the writings they have left 
us, to such a degree as to have depreciated themselves at 
the same time. In reading the details of those great vic- 
tories, which exercised so much the descriptive powers of 
the Greek historians, we are involuntarily reminded of that 
famous exclamation of Caesar on the field of battle, where 
the son of Mithridates was obliged to succumb to him : — 
" Oh, fortunate Pompey ! in having only such enemies to 
contend with I" No sooner did Greece come in contact 
with the genius of Rome, than she fell on her knees, never 
to stand erect again. 

The Greeks, moreover, sounded their own praises ; no 
contemporary nation had the opportunity, the means, or the 
disposition to contradict them ; but when the Romans took 

et mirabilius reformasti. — Liturgy of Mass. Deus qui mirabiliter 
creasti hominem et mirabilius redemisti. — Liturgy of Holy Satur- 
day before Mass. 

a Atheniensium res gestae, sicut ego existimo, satis amplse mag- 
nificseque fuere ; verum aliquanto minores quam fama feruntur. 
— Sallust. Cat. viii. 

b Lacedaemoniorum morte magis memorabilis quam pugna. — 
Liv. xxxvi. 



326 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



up the pen, they failed not to turn into ridicule "what the 
mendacious Greeks ventured upon in history/' a 

The Macedonians alone, of all the Greek races, were able 
to do themselves honour by a short resistance to the con- 
quering power of Rome. They were a people apart, a 
monarchical people, having a dialect peculiar to themselves 
(which no muse has spoken) ; strangers to the elegance, 
the arts, the poetical genius of the Greeks properly so 
called, and who in the end subjected these Greeks, because 
they were quite otherwise constituted. This people, never- 
theless, yielded like the rest. Never was it advantageous 
for the Greeks, generally speaking, to measure arms with 
the nations of the West. At a time, however, when the 
Greek empire reflected a certain lustre, and possessed at 
least one great man, the Emperor Justinian paid dear for 
having styled himself Emperor of the Franks. These 
Franks, under the leadership of Theodebert, came to Italy 
to call him to account for this proud pretension ; and if 
death had not rid him of Theodebert, the real Frank would 
probably have returned to France with the legitimate sur- 
name of Byzantine. 

It must be added, that the military glory of the Greeks 
was only a passing meteor. Iphicrates, Ckabrias, and Ti- 
motheus, close the list of their great captains, which opened 
with Miltiades} From the battle of Marathon to that of 
Leuctra, there intervened only one hundred and fourteen 
years. What is such a nation compared to those Romans 
who ceased not to conquer during a thousand years, and 
who were masters of the known world ? What is it, even, 
if compared to those modern nations that gained the battles 
of Soissons, of Fontenoy, of Crecy, of Waterloo, &c, and 
who are still in possession of their names and their original 
territories, without having ever ceased to grow in strength, 
in knowledge, and in renown ? 

a . . . . Et quidquid Graecia mendax. 

Audet in historia — Juven. 

b Neque post illorum obitum quisquam dux in ilia urbe fuit 
digmis memoria. — Corn. Nep. in Tim. iv. The rest of Greece 
presents no difference. 



CHAP. VII.] GREECE AND ITS CHARACTER. 327 

Learning and the arts were the triumph of Greece. In 
both the one and the other it discovered the beautiful, and 
fixed its characters. It has transmitted to us models which 
have scarcely left us more than the merit of imitation. 
We must always do as it has done, under pain of doing 
wrong. 

In philosophy the Greeks have displayed considerable 
talents ; nevertheless they are no longer the same men, 
and it is no longer allowable to bestow upon them unbounded 
praise. Their real merit in this way is, that they were, if 
it may be thus expressed, the couriers of science between 
Asia and Europe. I say not that this is not highly meri- 
torious ; but it has nothing in common with the genius of 
invention, which was totally wanting to the Greeks. They 
were incontestably later than any other people in attaining 
knowledge ; and as Clement of Alexandria has admirably 
remarked, " Philosophy only reached the Greeks after hav- 
ing made the tour of the world." a Never did they know 
more than what they learned from those who preceded them 
in the career of science ; but with their style, their grace, 
and skill in making the most of themselves, they have, to 
use an expression admirably to the point, gained our ear. 

Doctor Long has remarked, that astronomy owes nothing 
to the Academicians and Peripatetics, b and for no other 
reason than because these two sects were exclusively Greek, 
or rather Attic; so that they did not at all approach those 
Oriental sources, where men were learned, without disputing 
about anything, instead of disputing without knowing any- 
thing, as in Greece. 

Ancient philosophy is directly opposite to that of the 
Greeks, which was in reality nothing better than an endless 
disputation. Greece was the country of syllogisms and un- 
reason. People there spent their time in producing false 
reasonings, whilst showing how men ought to reason. 

The same Greek father of the Church whom I have just 
quoted, said, moreover, with much truth and wisdom, " The 
first philosophers had not the reputation of always arguing 
* Strom, i. 

b Maurice's History of Hindostan, 4to. torn. i. p. 169. 



328 



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[BOOK IV. 



and starting doubts, like those Greek philosophers, who 
cease not to argue and dispute through idle and barren 
vanity — who, in a word, employ themselves only about 
useless trifles." a 

This is precisely what an Indian philosopher had said 
long before : " We do not at all resemble those Greek phi- 
losophers who make great speeches about small matters ; it 
is our custom to announce great things in few words, in 
order that all may remember them/' b 

And it is indeed thus that the country of dogmas is dis- 
tinguished from that of argumentation. Tatian, in his 
famous discourse to the Greeks, said to them with a certain 
degree of impatience, " Have done giving us imitations 
instead of invention/' c 

Lanzi in Italy, and Gibbon beyond the Alps, have both 
repeated this same observation on the genius of the Greeks, 
the elegance and the barrenness of which they alike admit. d 

Music is the only thing that appears properly to belong 
to Greece, and yet for this art they are indebted to the 
East. Strabo remarks that the guitar had been called the 
Asiatic and that all the musical instruments were known 
in Greece by foreign names ; such as the nablia, the sackbut, 
the barbiton, &c. e 

Even the mud of Alexandria proved more favourable to 
science than the classic lands of Tempe and Ceramus. It 
has been truly observed, that since the foundation of this 
great Egyptian city there was no Greek astronomer who 
was not born there, or who did not there acquire his know- 
ledge and reputation. Such are Timocharis, Dionysius the 

» Clem. Alex. Strom. VIII. 

b Calamus, Gymnosoph. apud Athaen. Tlspi [iex av W aTi3)v ' Edit, 
Theven. fol. 2. 

c Tat. Orat. ad Grsecos. Edit. Paris, 1615, 12mo. vers. init. 

d Saggio di Letteratura Etrusca, &c. torn. ii. p. 189. The ge- 
nius of the Greeks, all romantic though it was, invented less than 
it embellished. — Gibbon, Memoires, torn. ii. p. 207, trad. Franc. 

e Huet, Demonst. Evang. prop. iv. cap. iv. No. 2. Even to-day 
is called ch'hitar (kitar), a six-corded instrument much used in 
Hindostan. — Recn. Asiat. torn. vii. 4to. p. 471. In this word we 
recognize the cithara of the Greeks and Latins, and our guitar. 



CHAP. VII.] GREECE AND ITS CHARACTER. 



329 



astronomer, Eratosthenes, the celebrated Hipparchus, Pos- 
sidonius, Sosigenes, and, in fine, Ptolemy, the last and 
greatest of all. a 

The same remark holds true in regard to mathematicians. 
Euclid, Pappus, Diophantes, were of Alexandria ; and he 
who appears to have surpassed them all — Archimedes — was 
an Italian. 

Bead Plato ; at every page you will make a very marked 
distinction. As often as he is a Greek, he is tiresome, and 
frequently exhausts our patience. He is great, sublime, 
penetrating, only when he writes like a theologian, enun- 
ciating positive and immutable dogmas, apart from all chi- 
canery, and which bear so clearly the stamp of Oriental 
genius, that he who cannot see it must never have had any 
knowledge of Asia. Plato had read much and travelled 
much ; there are in his writings a thousand proofs that he 
had searched the real sources of sound traditions. He 
united in his own person the sophist and the theologian, 
or, if it may rather be so expressed, he was both Greek and 
Chaldean. Plato is not understood, unless, in reading him, 
this idea be always present to the mind. 

Seneca, in his CXIIIth Epistle, has given us a singular 
specimen of Greek philosophy ; but nobody, in my opinion, 
has characterized it with so much truth and originality as 
the cherished philosopher of the eighteenth century : " Be- 
fore the Greeks," says he, " there were men much more 
learned, but who flourished in silence, and remained un- 
known, because they were never trumpeted and extolled by 
the Greeks. 5 The men of this nation invariably join pre- 
cipitation of judgment to the mania of dogmatizing — a 
twofold defect, mortally hostile to science and to wisdom. 
The Egyptian priest had good reason to tell them, You 
Greeks are only children. And, indeed, they were igno- 
rant alike of the antiquity of science and the science of 
antiquity; and their philosophy bears the two essential 

a Observation of the Abbe Terrasson. — Sethos. liv. ii. 

b Sed tamen majores cum silentio floruerunt antequam in Grse- 
corum tubas ac fistulas adhuc incidissent. — Bacon, Nov. Org. iv. 
cxxii. 



330 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



marks of childhood — it talks much and produces nothing."* 
It would be difficult to speak more to the purpose. 

If we except Lacedaemon, which was an exceedingly fine 
point in a corner of the world, we find the Greeks in politics 
what they were in philosophy — never agreed with other 
men, never consistent with themselves. Athens, which was, 
so to speak, the heart of Greece, and which exercised over 
it an undoubted magistracy, presents quite a novel spectacle 
in this respect. There is no comprehending these Athe- 
nians, frivolous as children, but with all the ferocity of 
full-grown men — a species of infuriated sheep, always led 
by their natural impulses, and always prompted by these 
impulses to devour their shepherds. It is well known, 
moreover, that every government is more or less attended 
with abuses ; that in democracies particularly, and above 
all in the ancient democracies, we must look for some ex- 
cesses of popular madness ; but that a republic should not 
have been able to pardon so much as one of its great men ; 
that they should have been reduced by injustice, persecu- 
tions, juridical assassinations, to believe themselves in safety 
only in proportion as they were at a distance from its 
walls ; b that it should have imprisoned, fined, accused, 
plundered, banished, put to death, or at least condemned 
to capital punishment, Miltiades, Themistocles, Aristides, 
Cimon, Timotheus, Phocion, and Socrates, is what never 
could have been witnessed except at Athens. 

In vain has Voltaire written, " that the Athenians were 
an amiable people Bacon would not fail to add, " as a 
child." But what could there be more terrible than a 
robust child, were it even never so amiable ? 

The orators of Athens have been so much talked of, that 
it has become almost ridiculous to speak of them any more. 
The Athenian tribune would have been the disgrace of 
mankind, if Phocion, and men like him, in ascending it 

* Nam verbosa videtur sapientia eorum, et operum sterilis. — 
Bacon, Impetus Philosophici. Opp. 8vo. torn. xi. p. 272. Nov. Org. 
i. lxxi. 

b Corn. Nep. in Chabr. iii. 



CHAP. VIII.] GREECE AND ITS CHARACTER. 



331 



sometimes before drinking the fatal hemlock or going into 
exile, had not balanced a little so much loquacity, extrava- 
gance, and cruelty. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. MORAL CHARACTER OF THE 

GREEKS.— -THEIR HATRED TO THE PEOPLE OF THE WEST. 

When we come to consider moral qualities, the Greeks 
appear in a still less favourable aspect. It is very re- 
markable that Rome, which refused not to do homage to 
their superiority in the arts and sciences, ceased not, mean- 
while, to despise them. It invented the word Grwculus, 
which figures in the writings of every author, and for 
which the Greeks were never able to take revenge, as it 
was impossible to confine the name of Roman within the 
narrow limits of a diminutive. To any one who would 
have ventured upon it, the ready reply would have been : 
" What do you mean ? " The Roman required of Greece 
physicians, architects, painters, musicians, &c. He paid 
them, and laughed at them. The Gauls, the Germans, 
the Spaniards, &c. were, indeed, subject, as well as the 
Greeks, but by no means held in contempt : Rome made 
use of their sword, and respected it. I am not aware of 
any jest indulged in by the Romans at the expense of 
these vigorous nations. 

Tasso, when he says, La fede Greca a chi non e~ palese? 
expresses, unfortunately, an opinion both ancient and new. 
Men of all times have invariably been of opinion that, 
as regarded good faith and the source from which it flows, 
practical religion, they left much to be desired. It is cu- 
rious to hear Cicero on this point ; there could not be a 
more elegant witness of the opinion held at Rome. a 

" You have heard witnesses against him," said he, to 
the judges, of one of his clients ; " but what witnesses ? 
In the first place, they are Greeks, and this objection is 

* Orat. pro Flacco, cap. iv. et seq. 



332 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



founded on general opinion. Not that I desire, more than 
other men, to wound the honour of this nation ; for if 
any Roman was ever their friend and partisan, I believe 
it was I, and I was so still more when I possessed more 
leisure.* . . . But, in fine, here is what I must say of 
the Greeks in general : I deny them not letters, arts, ele- 
gance of language, ingenuity, eloquence — and whatever 
more pretensions they may have, I by no means reject ; 
but good faith and the sacredness of an oath this people have 
never at all understood ; never have they felt the force, the 
authority, the weight of these holy things. Whence comes 
the well-known expression, ' Swear in my cause, and I will 
swear in yours ? ' Is this phrase attributed to the Gauls 
or Spaniards ? No, it belongs only to the Greeks ; and so 
much to the Greeks, that those even who do not know 
Greek can repeat it in that language. b Look at a witness 
of that nation : in beholding only his attitude, you will be 
able to form an opinion of his religion, and of the con- 
science which guides his evidence. ... He considers only 
in what manner he shall express himself — never the truth 
of what he says. . . . You have just heard a Roman 
grievously offended by the accused. He could have taken 
revenge, but religion restrained him ; he uttered not a 
word that could give offence ; and with what reserve did he 
not say even what he was obliged to say ! He trembled, 
he became pale as he spoke. . . . See our Romans when 
they give evidence in judgment : how they restrain them- 
selves, how they weigh all their words, how they dread 
being swayed in anything by passion, how careful to say 
not one word more or less than is rigidly necessary ! Do 
you compare such men to those who make sport of an oath ? 
I refuse in general all the witnesses produced in this case ; 
I refuse them because they are Greeks, and so belong to the 
most frivolous of nations, &c." 

Cicero, nevertheless, bestows a well-merited eulogium on 
two celebrated towns, Athens and Lacedasmon. "But," 

a Et magis etiam turn quum plus erat otii. — Orat. pro Flacco, 
cap. iv. 

° Aavuaov /xoi fiaprvpiav. 



CHAP. VIII.] GREECE AND ITS CHARACTER. 



333 



says he, <c all who are not entirely ignorant of such things, 
know that the real Greeks consist of only three families : 
the Athenian (which is a branch of the Ionian), the Eolian, 
and the Doric ; and this real Greece is but a point in 
Europe/' a 

But of the Eastern Greeks, far more numerous than the 
rest, Cicero speaks with unmitigated severity : "I desire 
not/' said he, in addressing them, " to quote the language 

of strangers ; I am satisfied with your own opinion 

Asia Minor, if I am not mistaken, is composed of Phrygia, 
Mysia, Caria, and Lydia. Is it we or you who invented 
the ancient proverb : ' There is nothing to be made of a 
Phrygian except by the whip ? ' What shall I say of 
Caria in general ? Is it not you also who have said : ' If 
you desire to incur any danger, go to Caria ? ' What 
more trivial expression is there in the Greek language than 
that made use of in devoting a man to the excess of con- 
tempt : ' He is the last of the Mysians ? ' And as to 
Caria, would you tell me whether there be a single Greek 
comedy in which the valet is not a Carian ? b What 
wrong, then, do we do you, by merely maintaining, that 
when there is question of matters regarding yourselves, we 
ought to have recourse to yourselves ? " c 

I do not pretend to comment on this passage in a way 
unfavourable to the modern Greeks. Is it found to be ex- 
aggerated ? I agree. Is this portrait found to bear no 
resemblance to the Greeks of to-day ? I agree to this also, 
and even most heartily desire it were so. But it will not 
remain less true, that, if we except perhaps a short period, 
never had Greece, generally speaking, any moral character 
among the nations of antiquity ; and that in point of cha- 
racter, as well as in arms, the western nations have always 
infinitely surpassed it. 

a Cicero, ibid, pro Flacco, xxvii. 

b This passage is worthy of remark, as showing what comedy 
was, and what was thought of it at Rome. 
c Cicero, pro Flacco, xxviii. 



334 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV 



CHAPTER IX. 

ON A PARTICULAR TRAIT OF THE GREEK CHARACTER — 
SPIRIT OF DIVISION. 

One peculiar feature of the Greek character — and which, 
I believe, distinguishes the Greeks from all the nations of 
the world — is, that they were incapable of forming any 
great association, whether political or moral. They never 
had the honour to be a people. Their history shows us 
only sovereign towns, always destroying one another, and 
which nothing could ever amalgamate. They shone under 
this form, because it was natural to them, and because 
nations never become illustrious, except under the form of 
government which is peculiar to them. The difference of 
dialects announced that of characters, no less than the op- 
position of sovereignties ; and this same spirit of division 
they carried into philosophy, which was divided into sects, 
as sovereignty was divided into small republics, that were 
independent and mutually hostile. This word sect being 
represented in the Greek language by that of heresy, the 
Greeks transferred the word to religion. They said, heresy 
of the Avians, as they had formerly said, heresy of the Stoics. 
Thus did they corrupt a word which originally conveyed no 
sinister meaning. They were heretics — that is, separatists 
in religion, as they had been .in politics and philosophy. It 
would be superfluous to call to mind to what a degree they 
annoyed the Church in the early ages. Possessed by the 
demon of pride and disputation, they allow no breathing- 
time to common sense, producing every day new subtleties : 
they recklessly mix up with all our dogmas their peculiar 
metaphysics, which completely destroy the simplicity of the 
Gospel. Desiring to be both philosophers and Christians 
at the same time, they are neither the one nor the other : 
they intermingle with the Gospel the spiritualism of the 
Platonicians and the dreams of the East. Armed with 
their absurd dialects, they would divide the indivisible and 



CHAP. IX.] 



SPIRIT OF DIVISION. 



335 



penetrate the impenetrable ; they cannot suppose anything 
divinely indefinite in certain expressions, which a learned 
humility takes as they are, and which avoids even to cir- 
cumscribe, lest it should give rise to the idea of within and 
without. Instead of believing, they dispute ; instead of 
praying, they adopt argument ; the high roads are covered 
with bishops hastening to councils, the relays of the empire 
scarcely sufficing to them ; the whole of Greece, in a word, 
is a sort of theological Peloponnesus, where atoms are con- 
stantly warring against atoms. Ecclesiastical history be- 
comes, thanks to these incomprehensible sophists, a dan- 
gerous book. In beholding so much folly, absurdity, and 
fury, faith staggers ; the reader, full of disgust and indig- 
nation, exclaims : " Perie moti sunt pedes mei ! " 

To complete the evil, Constantine transfers the empire 
to Byzantium. He there finds a language, admirable no 
doubt — the most beautiful, perhaps, that ever was spoken 
by man, but unfortunately affording the greatest facilities 
to sophists — a penetrating weapon, which ought never to 
have been wielded except by wisdom, and which, by a 
deplorable fatality, has almost always been in the hands of 
the foolish. 

Byzantium would induce us to believe in the system of 
climates, or that certain exhalations peculiar to certain 
lands invariably influence the character of the inhabitants. 
Roman sovereignty, in taking its seat upon this throne, 
being seized all of a sudden, as it were, by some magic 
power, lost its judgment, never more to recover it. We 
may read every page of universal history, and not meet with 
such a miserable dynasty. Either weak or frenzied, or 
both at the same time, these intolerable princes made their 
madness bear upon theology, of which their despotism took 
possession only to overturn it. The results are well known. 
One would say that language has aimed at doing justice on 
this empire, in designating it Low. It perished as it had 
lived — in disputing. Mahomet was breaking open the 
gates of the capital, whilst the sophists were arguing on 
the glory op Mount Thabor. 

Meanwhile, the Greek language being that of the empire, 



336 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



men become accustomed to say the Greek Church, as they 
said the Greek empire, although the Church of Constan- 
tinople was Greek, precisely as an Italian, naturalized at 
Boston, would be English ; but the power of words has 
never ceased to exercise very great authority in the world. 
Do we not still say the Greek Church of Russia, in defiance 
of civil supremacy as well as of the rules of language ? 
There is nothing habit will not cause to be said. 



CHAPTER X. 

A PHOTIAN PARALLOGISM CLEARED UP. ADVANTAGE PRE- 
TENDED TO BE DERIVED BY THE PHOTIAN CHURCHES FROM 
PRIORITY IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. 

The spirit of division and opposition which circumstances 
have naturalized in Greece for so many ages, has taken 
such deep root, that the inhabitants of this beautiful 
country have lost the very idea of unity. They behold 
it where it is not ; they see it not where it is. Fre- 
quently, too, they even become confused, and no longer 
know what they are talking about. They have imported 
into Russia one of their great parallogisms, which is at 
present producing a wonderful sensation in the circles of 
that great country. It is there said pretty commonly, that 
the Greek Church is more ancient than the Roman. It is 
even added in the language of metaphysics, that the first 
was the cradle of Christianity. But what do they mean ? 
We know that the Saviour of mankind was born at Beth- 
lehem, and if they will have it that his cradle was that of 
Christianity, there is nothing so strictly true. They will 
still say only what is true, if they fix the cradle of Chris- 
tianity at Jerusalem and in the Cenaculum, from whence 
went forth, on the day of Pentecost, that fire which en- 
lightens, warms, and purifies* In this sense, the Church 
of Jerusalem is incontestably the first, and St. James, in 
his quality of bishop, is anterior to St. Peter, by all the 

a Division of Bourdaloue's Sermon on Pentecost. 



CHAP. X.] PRETENSIONS OF THE PHOTIAN CHURCHES. 337 

time necessary for performing the journey from Jerusalem 
to Antioch or Rome. But this is not at all what there is 
question of. When, then, will they understand that the 
controversy between us is not about churches, but the 
Church ? It is impossible to compare two Catholic 
churches, simply because there cannot be two, the one 
logically excluding the other. And if a church be com- 
pared to the Church, we no longer know what is meant. 
To affirm that the Church of Jerusalem, for instance, or 
that of Antioch, is anterior to the establishment of the 
Catholic Church, is, as they say in England, a truism ; it 
is a truth, indeed, but quite a barren one ; it signifies 
nothing, and proves nothing. As well might it be re- 
marked, that a man who happens to be at Jerusalem, can- 
not be at Rome without going to it. Let us suppose a 
sovereign coming to take possession of a country newly 
conquered by his arms. In the first frontier town he esta- 
blishes a governor, and gives him great privileges ; he esta- 
blishes others as he proceeds. He arrives, at last, in the 
town he has chosen for his capital ; he there fixes his resi- 
dence, his throne, his great officers, &c. That, in the 
course of time, the first-mentioned town should claim the 
honour of having been the first to salute, by the title of 
king, the new sovereign ; that it should even compare 
itself to the other towns of his government ; and that it 
should cause it to be observed that it is anterior to the 
capital itself, would be quite just, as none have a right to 
hinder it from being said at Antioch that the name of 
Christian originated within its walls ; but if this govern- 
ment pretended to be anterior to the government or to the 
state, its pretension would thus be answered : You are right 
if you intend only to prove that the duty of obedience arose 
among you, and that you are the first subjects. But if you 
pretend to independence or superiority, you are quite astray, 
for there never can be question of anteriority in opposition 
to the state, on the good ground that there is only one 
state. 

The theological question is exactly the same. Of what 
consequence is it that such or such a church was consti- 



338 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



tuted before that of Borne ? Once more, this is not what 
there is question of. All churches are nothing without 
the Church, that is, the universal or Catholic Church, which 
does not claim in this respect any particular privilege, as 
it is impossible to imagine any human association with- 
out a government or centre of unity, on which depends its 
moral existence. 

Thus the United States of America would not be a 
state without Congress, which unites them. Make this 
assembly and its president disappear, unity will disappear 
at the same time, and you will have nothing else than 
thirteen independent states, in defiance of language and 
common laws. 

Let us add, although without necessity as regards the 
substance of the question, that this anteriority of which I 
have heard so often and so much, would be less ridiculous 
if it extended to any considerable length of time, — two 
centuries for instance, or even one. But what is there 
in Christianity anterior to St. Peter, who founded the 
Boman Church, and to St. Paul, who addressed to this 
Church one of his admirable epistles ? All the apostolic 
churches are alike as to the date of their origin ; their 
duration alone distinguishes them, for all these churches, 
one only excepted, have disappeared ; not one of them is in 
a position to trace back, without interruption, and through 
a succession of bishops known to be legitimate and ortho- 
dox, to the apostle who founded it. This glory belongs to 
no other than the Boman Church. 

It must be further added, that this question of ante- 
riority, in itself so trifling and sophistical, is particularly 
misplaced in the mouth of the Church of Constantinople, 
the last in date of the patriarchal churches, and which 
owes its title even to the obstinacy of the Greek emperors, 
and the complaisance of the first See, too often obliged to 
choose between two evils, always the sport of the absurd 
tyranny of its princes, stained by the most fearful heresies, 
the perpetual scourge of the Church, which it ceased not to 
torment, and afterwards to divide, perhaps for ever. 

But there cannot be question of priority. I have made 



CHAP. X.] PRETENSIONS OF THE PHOTIAN CHURCHES. 339 

it clear that this question is without meaning, and that 
those who discuss it understand not what they aim at. 
The Photian churches will not see that at the time of 
their separation they became Protestant, in other words, 
separated and independent. They are obliged, besides, in 
self-defence, to employ the Protestant principle, to maintain 
that they are united by faith, although identity of legisla- 
tion, even, cannot constitute the unity of any government, 
which unity can- only exist where there exists also the 
hierarchy of authority. 

Thus, for instance, all the provinces of France are parts 
of France, because they are all united under a common 
authority; but if some of them rejected this common 
supremacy, they would become separate and independent 
states ; and no man of sense would tolerate the assertion 
that they continue to constitute a portion of the kingdom of 
France, because they haw preserved the same language and 
the same legislation. 

The Photian churches have precisely and identically the 
same pretension ; they desire to be a portion of the Catholic 
kingdom, after having abdicated the common power. If asked 
to name the power or common tribunal which constitutes 
unity, they reply that there is none ; and, if the question be 
still further urged, How is it possible that any power what- 
ever should not have a common tribunal for all its provinces 9 
they make answer, that this tribunal is now useless, because 
it decided everything in its sice first sessions, and hence 
ought never again to assemble. To these miracles of false 
reasoning, they will add more, if your logic continues to 
harass them. Such is pride, — such, particularly, is national 
pride ; never was it known to be ashamed of itself, or even 
to have any misgiving. 

All these separated churches condemn themselves every 
day, as they say, I believe in one universal Church. For, 
as a necessary consequence, instead of this profession dejure 
(of right), they must substitute another de facto (of fact), 
— i" believe in the one and universal churches. This is 
the most revolting solecism that ever grated on the human 
ear. 

z 2 



340 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV 



And this solecism, it must be remarked, cannot be re- 
torted upon us. In vain would it be said to us, " Sepa- 
rated from us, do you not pretend to unity? separated 
from you, why should not we have the same pretension ? " 
There is not the slightest comparison. Unity is with us ; 
nobody disputes the fact. The whole question hinges on 
the legitimacy, the powers, and the extent of this unity. 
Among the Photians, on the contrary, as among all other 
Protestants, there is no unity, so that there can be no 
question of knowing whether we ought to submit to a 
tribunal which does not exist. Thus the argument applies 
only to those churches themselves, and cannot be retorted. 

The supremacy of the Sovereign Pontiff is so clear, so 
incontestable, and so universally recognized, that at the 
time of the great separation, among those who rebelled 
against his power, none dared to usurp it, not even the 
author of the schism. They denied, indeed, that the 
Bishop of Rome is the chief of the Church, but none 
of them was so bold as to say, / am its chief; so that 
each church remained alone and without a head, or, what 
amounts to the same thing, out of unity and the Catholic 
pale. 

Photius had presumed to call himself (Ecumenical Pa- 
triarch, a title which could only be paraded in that seat of 
imbecility — Byzantium. Did the Church ever behold the 
bishops of one patriarchate assemble and style themselves 
an oecumenical council ? This folly, nevertheless, would 
not have differed from the other. In order not to do vio- 
lence to logic as well as the canons, Photius had only to 
assume over all his accomplices that same jurisdiction 
which he had dared to dispute with the legitimate Pontiff ; 
but the conscience of man was more powerful than his am- 
bition. He confined himself to rebellion, and dared not, or 
could not, go the length of usurpation. 



CHAP. XI.] 



MODERN GREECE. 



341 



CHAPTER XI. 

WHAT MUST BE EXPECTED OF THE GREEKS ? CONCLUSION OF 

THIS BOOK. 

Several narratives have made known to us, although 
but vaguely, that a fermentation which cannot fail to be 
attended with valuable results has been excited in modern 
Greece. We are told that a new spirit has arisen, that an 
ardent enthusiasm for national glory has been kindled, that- 
remarkable efforts have been made for the improvement of 
the vernacular tongue, which it is desired to assimilate as 
much as possible to its great original. The zeal of foreign- 
ers, allying itself with native ardour, is on the point of pre- 
senting to the world an Athenian academy. 

On the faith of these accounts, we might believe that 
the regeneration of a people, anciently so celebrated, is near 
at hand, notwithstanding that the institution and the re- 
generation of nations by means of academies, and even, 
generally speaking, by means of science, is as contrary as 
anything we can imagine to the course of Divine laws. 
Nevertheless, I joyfully accept the augury, and I earnestly 
pray success to such noble efforts ; but several considera- 
tions, I must candidly confess, still alarm me, and compel 
me to doubt in spite of myself. I have often conversed 
with men who had lived long in Greece, and who had par- 
ticularly studied its inhabitants. I have found them all 
agreed on this point, that it will never be possible to esta- 
blish a Greek sovereignty. There is something inexplicable 
in the Greek character which is essentially opposed to every 
great association, to every independent organization, and 
this is the first thing that meets the eye of a stranger who 
is at all capable of observing. I desire nothing more than 
that I may be deceived, but there are too many reasons for 
admitting the truth of this opinion. In the first place, it 
is founded on the character, the same now as ever, of this 
nation, which, if the expression may be used, is bom di- 



342 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



tided. Cicero, who was only removed by three or four 
centuries from the best days of Greece, gave it credit, not- 
withstanding, only for talents and wit. What can we ex- 
pect now that two thousand years have passed over this 
unfortunate people, without ever allowing them at all to 
behold the light of liberty ? Must not the fearful bondage 
under which they have groaned for so many ages have ex- 
tinguished in the soul of the Greeks even the idea of inde- 
pendence and of sovereignty ? Who does not know the 
deplorable influence of despotism on the character of a 
subdued nation ? And, above all, such a despotism ! No 
people, perhaps, ever experienced such another. In Greece 
there is no point of contact, no possibility of amalgamation 
between the master and the slave. The Turks are to-day 
what they were in the middle of the fifteenth century — 
Tartars encamped in Europe. Nothing can bring them 
into relation with the subjugated people, whom nothing 
can ally to them. Wherever they are, two laws, mutually 
hostile, behold one another in fury ; they may touch one 
another for all' eternity, without ever attaining the remotest 
degree of love. Between them no treaties, no accommoda- 
tions, no transactions are possible. The one cannot concede 
anything to the other ; and that feeling, even, which is every- 
where else a bond of union, is powerless over them. On either 
side the sexes dare not look at one another, as if they were 
beings constituted in mutual hostility, whom the Creator 
has separated for ever. Between them stand sacrilege and 
capital punishment. One would say that Mahomet II. 
only entered yesterday into Greece, and that the right of 
conquest still prevails there in its original rigour. Placed 
between the scimitar and the baton of the pacha, the Greek 
scarcely ventures to breathe — he is sure of nothing, not 
even of his newly-wedded bride. He conceals his treasure, 
his children, and even the front of his house, if it be such 
as possibly to disclose the secret of his riches. He becomes 
hardened to insult and to torture. He knows how many 
blows he may bear without making known the gold he has 
concealed. What must not have been the result of this 
treatment on the character of a people utterly crushed, 



CHAP. XI.] 



MODERN GREECE. 



343 



among whom the child can scarcely pronounce the name of 
its mother before that of oppression ? Real observers pro- 
test, that if the sceptre of iron which rules it came to be 
suddenly withdrawn, it would be the greatest misfortune 
for Greece, which would be immediately seized throughout 
with a convulsive fit, without the possibility of finding a 
remedy, or of seeing its termination. "Where would be for 
this people, supposed to be enfranchised, the point of re- 
union, or the centre of political unity, which it would not 
understand any better than it has understood religious 
unity for eight centuries back ? What province would 
yield to another ? What race would reign over them all ? 
Nothing, besides, presages this enfranchisements Our 
weakness formerly preserved the sceptre of the Sultans ; 
to-day our strength protects it. Great jealousies observe 
and balance one another. If appearances do not deceive 
us, they will yet, perhaps, sustain for a long time the Otto- 
man throne, although it be undermined on every side. 

And what if this throne should fall ! Greece would 
change masters ; this is all it would obtain. It might pos- 
sibly gain, no doubt, but it would be always held in subjec- 
tion. Egypt is, doubtless, in every respect the country of 
all the world most calculated to depend on none but itself. 
Ezekiel nevertheless declared, more than two thousand 
years ago, that Egypt would never be swayed by an Egyp- 
tian sceptre ; h and from Cambyses to the Mamelukes the 
prophecy has never ceased to be fulfilled. Irfisraim, no 
doubt, still expiates under our eyes the crimes which pro- 
ceeded of old from the temples of Memphis and Tentyra, 
the deep and mysterious recesses of which poured out error 
on mankind. Because of this prolonged iniquity, Egypt is 
condemned to the last punishment of nations — the angel of 
sovereignty has abandoned that celebrated country, per- 

a It must "be borne in mind, that these observations on the state 
of Greece were written so far back as 1817. To-day, perhaps, 
King Otho, or his government, or the government at present wag- 
ing war on his government, may be able to reply to the queries 
of Count de Maistre. — Translator. 

b Ezekiel xxix. 13 ; xxx. 13. 



344 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



haps, never more to return. Who knows whether Greece 
be not subject to the same anathema ? No prophet has 
cursed it — at least according to our books ; but we might 
be tempted to believe that the identity of punishment sup- 
poses identity of transgressions. Was not Greece the en- 
chantress of the nations f Did she not take upon herself 
the task of transmitting to Europe the superstitions of 
Egypt and the East? Through her are we not still pagans? 
Is there a fable, a folly, or a vice, that has not a Greek 
name, a Greek emblem, a Greek mask ? And, to say all 
in one word, was it not Greece that formerly did itself the 
horrible honour of being the first to deny God, and to lend 
an audacious voice to Atheism, which had not yet ventured 
to assume the form of speech in the face of mankind ? a 

iElian remarks truly, that all the peoples styled bar- 
barians by the Greeks acknowledged a supreme Divinity, 
and that there never were Atheists among them. b 

I desire nothing better than to be deceived ; but no 
human eye can foresee the termination of the servitude of 
Greece ; and if it came to an end, who knows what would 
happen ? 

More than once in modern times has Greece regulated 
its hopes and its political projects on the afiinity of creeds ; 
but, always destined to be deceived, it may have learned to 
its cost that it has nothing to hold by. How many cen- 
turies more will it yet require to bring the Greeks to under- 
stand that they can have no brothers who have not a 
common mother ? 

A fatal error of Greece, and which, unfortunately, has 
not the appearance of coming soon to an end, is, that it 
relies upon ancient recollections in attributing to itself I 
know not what imaginary existence, which never ceases to 
deceive it. It even goes the length of speaking about 
rivalry as regards us. Of old, perhaps, this rivalry had a 

a Primum Grams homo mortales tollere contra 
Est oculos ausus, &c. — Lucret. lib. i. 67, 68. 
b iElian. Hist. Var. lib. ii. cap. xxxi. Thomassin ; Maniere 
d'Etudier et d'Enseigner FHistoire, torn. i. liv. ii. chap. v. p. 381. 
Paris, 1693, 8vo. 



CHAP. XI.] 



MODERN GREECE. 



345 



choose to suppose it, does not appear at all probable. How- 
basis and a meaning ; but how can there be rivalry, now- 
a-days, when on the one side there is everything, and on 
the other nothing? Is it the glory of arms, or that of 
science, which Greece would dispute with us? It styles 
itself the East, whilst as regards the real East, it is only a 
point of the West, and to us it is scarcely visible. I know 
that it wrote the Iliad, that it built the Poecile, that it 
sculptured the Apollo Belvidere, that it gained the battle 
of Platsea ; but all this is very ancient, and, to speak can- 
didly, a sleep of two-and-twenty centuries very much re- 
sembles death. May the most melancholy auguries only 
prove to be deceitful appearances ! Let us ardently desire 
that this ingenious nation may recover its independence, 
and show itself worthy of it ; let us desire that its sun may 
rise at length, and dispel the darkness which has covered it 
so long ! It belongs not to a private individual to give 
counsel to a nation, but a simple wish is always allowed. 
May Greece Proper, the Greece so well denned by Cicero, a 
separate for ever from that fatal Byzantiuni, of old only a 
Greek colony, and whose imaginary supremacy is wholly 
founded on titles which no longer exist ! We are told of 
Phocion, of Pericles, of Epaminondas, of Socrates, of Plato, 
of Agesilaus, &c. &c. Let us treat, then, with their de- 
scendants, without troubling ourselves about the municipia. 
There is on our side neither hatred nor any bitterness of 
feeling ; we have not forgotten, like the Greeks, the peace 
of Lyons and that of Florence. Let us embrace once more, 
never again to be thrown asunder. There is no longer any- 
thing between us than, as it were, a magic wall, built up 
by pride, and which will not for a moment be able to resist 
good faith and the desire to be united. And if the ana- 
thema should still remain, let us see at least that no blame 
attach to us. A prelate of the Greek Church has com- 
plained bitterly, as I know for certain, that advances made 
in a certain quarter had been received with discouraging 
coldness. Such a derogation from the well-known maxims 
of mildness and good management, however slight we may 
a Sup. chap. viii. 



346 THE POPE. [book IV. 

ever this may be, it is highly to be desired that new nego- 
tiations be attended with a more successful result, and that 
love spontaneously open its immense arms, which embrace 
nations as well as individuals. 



CONCLUSION. 

L After the awful tempest which has swept over the 
Church, let her children, at least, afford her the consoling 
spectacle of concord ; it is time they should cease to afflict 
her by their insensate discussions. To us, happy children 
of unity, it belongs above all loudly to profess principles of 
which experience has taught us to feel the importance. 
From every point of the globe (and happily there is none 
where there are not true Christians), let one voice, consist- 
ing of all our voices united, repeat with religious enthu- 
siasm the language of that great man with whom I have 
reluctantly and respectfully disputed some questions of 
high importance : " Oh, holy Roman Church, mother oftJie 
other Churches, and of all the faithful ! Church God has 
chosen to unite his children in the same faith and in the 
same charity ! we will, from our inmost soul, ever hold 
to thy unity? We have too little known our happiness ; 
led astray by the impious doctrines with which Europe 
resounded throughout the last century ; still further led 
astray, perhaps, by unfounded exaggerations, and by a 
spirit of independence, enkindled even in the bosom of our 
Church, we have almost broken the bonds, of which we 
could not, without rendering ourselves absolutely inexcus- 
able, refuse now to acknowledge the inestimable value. 
Catholic sovereignties, even (may it be permitted to say so 
without going beyond the bounds of that respect which is 
due to them), Catholic sovereignties, even, have appeared 
sometimes to apostatize : for it is an apostasy to refuse to 
recognize the foundations of Christianity — to shake them, 
even, by loudly declaring war on the chief of religion, 
crushing him with disgust, with bitterness, with shameful 
a Bossuet's Sermon on Unity. 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



347 



chicanery, from which Protestant power would perhaps have 
refrained. Among the princes alluded to, there are some 
who will be classed one day among the more notorious per- 
secutors ; they have not shed blood, it is true ; but pos- 
terity will ask whether the Diocletian, the Galerius, the 
Decius did more harm to Christianity. 

It is time to abjure such guilty systems ; it is time to 
return to the common father — to throw ourselves, with all 
candour, into his arms — and to break down, at last, that 
wall of brass, which impiety, error, prejudice, and malevo- 
lence had built up between us and him. 

II. But at this solemn moment, when everything indi- 
cates that Europe is on the eve of a memorable revolution, 3 
of which that which we have witnessed was but the terrible 
and indispensable preliminary — to Protestants, above all, 
we must address our fraternal remonstrances and our fer- 
vent supplications. What are they still waiting for, and 
what are they in search of? They have traversed the 
whole circle of error. By dint of attacking and (so to 
speak) paring down faith, they have destroyed Christianity 
among themselves ; and, thanks to the efforts of their for- 
midable science, which has never ceased to protest, the 
half of Europe is left at last without religion. The era of 
passion has passed away ; we can speak to one another 
without mutual hate, even without warmth ; let us avail 
ourselves of these favourable circumstances ; let princes, 
especially, take heed that power is falling from their hands ; 
that as European monarchy could only have been consti- 
tuted, so can it only be preserved, by the one and only reli- 
gion ; and that if this ally should fail them, they must fall. 

III. All that has been said to alarm the Protestant 
powers on the ground of the influence of a foreign power, 
is a mere chimera — a scarecrow, erected in the sixteenth 
century, and which in our age has no meaning whatever. 
Let the English, especially, reflect seriously on this matter, 
for the great movement ought to begin with them ; and 
if they hasten not to seize the glory which is offered them, 

a Written in 1817. Well-informed readers will judge how far 
the remark is applicable at the present day. 



348 



THE POPE. 



[BOQK IV. 



another people will bear away the palm. The prejudices 
of the English against us are quite out of date ; their 
sophistry is an anachronism. They read in some Catholic 
book, that men ought not to obey an heretical prince. They 
immediately take fright, and cry " No Popery/' But all 
this wrath would speedily evaporate, if they condescended to 
read the date of the book — which must, undoubtedly, have 
been written at the melancholy epoch of the wars of reli- 
gion and the changes of sovereignties. Have not the 
English themselves declared, in full parliament, that if a 
king of England embraced the Catholic religion, he would, 
by the very eact of so doing, be deprived of the crown ? a 
They think, therefore, that the crime of desiring to change 
the religion of the country, or that of giving rise to a well- 
founded suspicion of such a purpose, justifies rebellion on 
the part of the subjects — or, rather, authorizes them to 
dethrone the sovereign without becoming rebels. Now, I 
have the curiosity to wish to be informed why and how 
Elizabeth and Henry VIII. had more rights in regard to 
their Catholic subjects, than the house of Brunswick would 
have to-day over their Protestant subjects ; and why the 
Catholics of that time, relying on their natural privileges, 
and a possession of sixteen centuries, were not authorized 
to consider their tyrants fallen, by the very fact of their 
tyranny, from all right to the crown ? For my own part, 
I shall not say that a nation in such cases is entitled to 
resist its masters, to judge them, and to depose them ; 
in any imaginable supposition, it would be incalculably 
painful to me to pronounce such a decision ; but it will, 
no doubt, be conceded, that if anything could justify re- 
sistance, it would be an attack on the national religion. 
For a long time the designation of Jacobite indicated a 
decided enemy of the reigning house. The latter, in self- 
defence, kept the axe raised against every partisan of the 
dispossessed family ; such is the political order. But at 
what precise moment did the Jacobite really begin to incur 
guilt ? This is a formidable question, which must be left 



a Parliamentary Debates, vol. iv. p. 677. London, 1805, 8vo. 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



349 



to the judgment of God. Now that time has made this 
judgment known, the Catholic approaches the sovereign of 
Great Britain, and says to him : " You see our principles ; 
our fidelity has neither limits, nor exceptions, nor con- 
ditions. God has taught us that sovereignty is his work ; 
he has made it a duty for us to resist, at the risk of our 
lives, the violence which aims at overthrowing it ; and if 
this violence prove successful, we find it nowhere revealed 
to us at what time success may render it legitimate. To 
press forward too eagerly may be a crime ; to die for one's 
ancient rulers never can be criminal. So long as there 
were Stuarts in the world, we did battle for them, and 
under the axe of your executioners our last breath was 
for those unfortunate princes. Now they no longer exist ; 
God has spoken, you are the legitimate sovereigns ; we 
know not from what period, but you are so. Accept 
this same religious, determined, immovable fidelity, which 
we swore of old to the unfortunate race that preceded 
yours. If ever rebellion should rage around you, no fear, 
no seductive influence shall be able to detach us from 
your cause. Were you guilty, even, of the most unpar- 
donable conduct in our regard, we would defend it to the 
last moment of our life. We shall be found around your 
colours on every field where your battle shall be fought ; 
and if, in testimony of our faith, we should yet have to 
encounter scaffolds, you have familiarized us with them — 
we would water them with our blood, without remembering 
in anger that of our fathers, which you caused to flow for 
this same crime of fidelity." 

IV. Everything appears to indicate that the English 
people are destined to take the lead in the great religious 
movement which is preparing, and which will form a 
sacred epoch in the annals of mankind. In order to 
reach the light of truth before all others who have ab- 
jured it, they possess a twofold and inappreciable advan- 
tage, which they little suspect : it consists in this, that by 
the happiest contradiction imaginable, their religious system 
is at once the most evidently false and the most evidently 
near the truth. 



350 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



To know that the Anglican religion is false, there is no 
need either of research or of argument. It is judged by 
intuition ; it is false as the sun is luminous ; it is sufficient 
to behold it. The Anglican hierarchy is isolated in Chris- 
tianity ; it is therefore null. Nothing reasonable can be 
said in reply to this observation. Its episcopate is rejected 
alike by the Catholic and by the Protestant church ; but if 
it be neither Catholic nor Protestant, what is it ? Nothing. 
Nothing beyond a civil and local establishment, diametri- 
cally opposed to universality, the exclusive mark of truth. 
Either this religion is false, or God has become incarnate 
specially for the English people : between these two propo- 
sitions there is no middle point. Their theologians fre- 
quently appeal to the Establishment, without perceiving 
that this word alone annuls their religion, inasmuch as it 
shows novelty and human action, two great anathemas 
equally visible, decisive, and ineffaceable. Other divines 
of this school, and prelates, even, anxious to escape from 
these anathemas, with the reality of which they are invo- 
luntarily impressed, have adopted the extraordinary course 
of maintaining that they were not Protestants. To this what 
can we say but ask them once more, what, then, are you ? 
" Apostolical/'' they reply. a But this they could say only 
to excite our laughter, if, indeed, it were possible to laugh 
at things so important, and men so highly estimable. 

V. The Anglican Church is, besides, the only associa- 
tion in the world which has declared itself null and ridi- 
culous by the very act which constitutes it. In this act it 
has solemnly proclaimed thirty-nine articles, neither more 
nor less, absolutely necessary to salvation, and which must 
be sworn to in order to belong to this church. But one 
of these articles (the XXVth) formally declares that God, 
in constituting his Church, has not left infallibility upon 
earth ; that all the churches, beginning with that of Rome, 
have fallen into error ; that they have grossly erred, even 
as regards dogma, even as regards morality ; so that none 
of them possesses the right to lay down a creed, and that 



a Sup. lib. iv. chap. v. 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



351 



the Scriptures are the only rule of faith. The Anglican 
Church declares, therefore, to her children, that she is, 
indeed, entitled to command them, but that they are 
equally entitled to refuse her their obedience. At the 
same moment, with the same pen and ink, on the same 
paper, she enunciates dogma, and declares she has no right 
to do so. I think I may be allowed to entertain the con- 
viction, that of the interminable catalogue of human follies, 
this is one which will always hold a distinguished rank. 

VI. After this solemn declaration of the Anglican 
Church, which annuls itself, there was wanting only the 
testimony of the civil power to ratify this judgment ; and 
this testimony I find in the parliamentary debates of the 
year 1805, on the subject of Catholic emancipation. In 
one of the noisy sittings, which were only calculated to 
prepare the minds of men for a more distant and more 
happy time, the attorney-general of his majesty the king 
of Great Britain, happened to utter a sentence which has 
not, as far as I am aware, been remarked, but which is not 
the less one of the most curious things that have been said 
in Europe, for a century perhaps. 

" Call to mind/' said, in the House of Commons, this 
important magistrate, invested with a public ministry, 
" call to mind that it is quite the same thing for Eng- 
land to repeal the laws enacted against the Catholics, or 
to have immediately a Catholic parliament, and the Catho- 
lic religion, instead of the existing establishment."* 

The commentary on this admirably ingenuous observa- 
tion at once occurs. The attorney -general might as well 
have said, in as many words, " Our religion, as you know, 
is nothing else than a purely civil establishment, having 
no other foundation than the law of the country, and the 
interest of each individual. Why are we Anglicans ? 
Assuredly it is not persuasion that determines us ; it is 
the dread of losing property, honours, and privileges. 
The word faith having, therefore, no meaning in our 

* Parliamentary Debates, &c. vol. iv. p. 943. London, 1805. 
Speech of the Attorney-General. 



352 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



language, and the English conscience being Catholic, we 
shall obey it the moment it will no longer cost us anything 
to do so. In a twinkling we shall be all Catholics/' a 

VII. But if in the whole circle of error which this reli- 
gion presents, there be nothing so evidently false as the 
Anglican system itself, to compensate, in how many ways 
does it not recommend itself to our favourable notice as 
being nearest the truth ? Restrained by the power of two 
formidable sovereigns, who had but little relish for popular 
exaggerations, and held in check also, it is our duty to 
say, by their superior good sense, the English were able, 
in the sixteenth century, to resist, in a remarkable degree, 
the torrent which hurried away the other nations, and to 
preserve several elements of catholicity. Hence the ambi- 
biguous physiognomy which distinguishes the Anglican 
Church, and which so many writers have pointed out. 

As the mistress of a monarch's bed, 

Her front erect with majesty she bore, 

The crozier wielded and the mitre wore : 

Showed affectation of an ancient line, 

And Fathers, Councils, Church, and Church's Head, 

Were on her rev'rend Phylacteries read. b 

Noble British people ! You were formerly the first 
enemies of unity ; on you now devolves the honour of re- 

a I would venture, nevertheless, to express my belief that the 
learned magistrate took an exaggerated view of the future evil. 
" All," says he, " will be Catholics." Well, and when all should 
be agreed, where would be the evil ? 

Three days previously (sitting of 10th May, ibid. p. 761), a 
peer said, in speaking on the same question : " James II. only 
asked for the Catholics equality of privileges ; but this equality 
would have led to the fall of Protestantism." And why ? Al- 
ways the same avowal. Error, if not sustained by proscriptions, 
can never stand against truth. 

b Dry den's Original Poems, 12mo. torn, i., The Hind and the 
Panther, Part I. I read in the European Magazine, torn, xviii. 
August, 1790, p. 115, a remarkable passage of Dr. Burney on the 
same subject. Some modern dissenters are less polite and more 
cutting : " They (the dissenters) called the Church of Rome a 
strumpet, the Kirk of Scotland a kept mistress, and the Church 
of England an equivocal lady of easy virtue, between the one and 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



353 



storing it in Europe. Error only raises its head therein be- 
cause our two languages are hostile ; if they came to be allied, 
as regards the greatest of all objects, nothing would be able 
to resist them. It is necessary only to profit by the happy 
occasion now offered by the state of political affairs. A 
single act of justice (since in part accomplished), and time 
will do the rest. 

VIII. After three centuries of irritation and discussion, 
what do you still reproach us with, and what do you com- 
plain of? Do you persist in saying that we have inno- 
vated, that we have invented dogmas, and changed our 
human opinions into creeds ? But if you will not believe 
our doctors, who protest and who prove that they teach 
only the faith of the Apostles, believe, at least, your 
atheists. They will tell you " that the powers exercised 
by the Roman Church are, in great part, anterior to 
almost all the political establishments of Europe."* 

Believe on this head your deists. They will tell you, 
" that a well-informed man cannot resist the weight of 
historical evidence, which establishes that, in 'the whole 
period of the four first ages of the Church, the principal 
points of the papistical doctrines were already admitted in 
theory and in practice. ,>b 

Believe your apostates. They will tell you that they 
had yielded at first to this argument, which appeared to 
them invincible, that there must be somewhere an infallible 
judge, and that the Church of Rome is the only Christian 
society which pretends or can pretend to this character. 

the other." — Journal of the British Parliament, House of Com- 
mons, Thursday, 2nd March, 1790, Speech of the celebrated 
Burke. 

a Many of the powers indeed assumed by the Church of Rome 
were very ancient, and were prior to almost every political go- 
vernment established in Europe. — Hume's History of England, 
Henry VIII. chap. xxix. ann. 1521. 

Hume, as we see, endeavours to modify slightly his proposition, 
but he merely cavils with his conscience. 

b Gibbon, Memoir, torn. i. chap. i. of the French translation. 

c This decision is Chillingworth's, and Gibbon, who relates it, 
adds, " that the former was indebted only to himself for this argu- 
2 A 



354 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



Believe your own doctors, even, your Anglican bishops. 
They will tell you, at those more happy moments when 
their consciences were at liberty, and they were also free 
from distractions, " that the seeds of Popery were sown 
even in the Apostles' times." a 

Endeavour to recollect yourselves, endeavour to be suffi- 
ciently masters of yourselves and of your prejudices, to 
consider with a tranquil conscience of what a strange sys- 
tem you have still the misfortune to be the principal de- 
fenders. But are so many arguments necessary against 
Protestantism ? No, it suffices to trace its portrait exactly, 
and, without anger, to invite attention to it. 

IX. " By virtue of a terrible anathema, inexplicable, no 
doubt, but, nevertheless, much less inexplicable than in- 
contestable, mankind hh .l ost all their rights. Plunged 
in mortal darkness, they were ignorant of everything, as 
they were ignorant of God ; and, because they knew him 
not, they could not pray to him, so that they were spi- 
ritually dead, without being able to ask for life. Fallen by 
rapid steps ' to the lowest depth of degradation, they out- 
raged nature by their morals, by their laws, and by their 
religions even. They consecrated every vice, they wallowed 
in a mire of iniquity, and so brutal had they become, that 
the simple history of those times forms a dangerous picture, 
which all men ought not to behold. God, nevertheless, 
after having dissembled during forty ages, at length re- 
membered his creature. At the moment appointed, and 
throughout all time announced, he disdained not a virgins 
womb ; he clothed himself in our unhappy nature, and 
appeared upon the earth : we beheld him, we touched him, 
and he spoke to us ; he lived, he taught, he suffered, he 

ment" — Gibbon, as above, ch. vi. In this supposition, we must 
believe that neither Chillingworth nor Gibbon had particularly 
studied our doctors. 

a Bishop Newton's Dissertations on the Prophecies. London, 
8vo. torn. iii. chap. x. p. 148. 

Honest man ! Yet a slight effort of candour, and we should 
have heard him agree, not indirectly, as he does here, but in pro- 
per terms, "that the seeds of Popery were sown by Jesus Christ" 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



355 



died for us. Risen from the grave according to his pro- 
mise, he appeared anew amongst us, in order solemnly to 
assure his Church of assistance that would endure as long 
as the world itself. But, alas ! this effort of Almighty- 
love had not nearly the success it promised. From want 
of knowledge, or of strength, or from distraction, perhaps, 
God missed his aim, and was not able to keep his word. 
Less wise than the chemist who should undertake to en- 
close ether in linen or in paper, he confided to mere men 
that truth which he had brought into the world ; it es- 
caped, therefore, as might well have been foreseen, by so 
many human pores. In a short time, this holy religion, 
revealed to man by the Man- God, was nothing better than 
an infamous idolatry, which would still subsist, if Chris- 
tianity, after sixteen centuries, had not been, all of a 
sudden, restored to its original purity by two wretched 
men/' 

Such is Protestantism, And what shall we say of it, 
and of those who defend it, when it will no longer exist ? 
Let them rather aid us in making it disappear. In order 
to re-establish a religion and a morality in Europe, in 
order to give to truth the strength it requires for the 
conquests it meditates, in order, especially, to consolidate 
the thrones of our sovereigns, and to calm the agitation of 
men's minds, so general throughout Europe, and which 
threatens us with the greatest misfortunes, it is an indis- 
pensable preliminary to efface from the European dictionary 
that fatal word, Protestantism. 

It is impossible that considerations of such importance 
should not find their way at length into the Protestant 
cabinets, remain there in reserve, and thence descend 
afterwards, like a beneficent stream, to water the plains. 
Everything invites Protestants to return to us. Their 
science, which, at present, is only a dreadful corrosive, 
will lose its deleterious power by allying itself with our 
obedience, which, in its turn, does not refuse the light of 
science. This great change must begin by the princes, 
and remain perfectly foreign to the ministry called evange- 
lical. Several manifest signs exclude this ministry from 

2 a 2 



356 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



the great work. It is always a great evil to adhere to 
error ; but, to teach it by profession, to teach it in opposi- 
tion to the voice of conscience, is the height of misfortune, 
and absolute blindness is its undoubted consequence. A 
great example in this way has just occurred in the capital 
of Protestantism, where the body of pastors has publicly 
renounced Christianity, and declared itself Arian, whilst 
the good sense of the laity upbraids it with its apostacy. 

XI. In the midst of the general excitement, the French, 
and among them, particularly, the sacerdotal order, ought 
to consider carefully how they proceed, and not allow to 
pass by unprofitably this great opportunity of labouring 
efficaciously in reconstructing the sacred edifice, even 
from its foundation. They have, no doubt, great preju- 
dices to contend with, but they possess, also, great means 
of overcoming them, and what is most fortunate, several of 
their powerful enemies are no longer in the field. The 
parliaments no longer exist. Joined together in one body, 
they would have offered, perhaps, an invincible opposition, 
and it would have been all over with the Gallican Church. 
To-day, the parliamentary spirit can only be manifested, 
and can only act through the efforts of individuals, and 
these never can have a great result. It may, therefore, be 
hoped that nothing will hinder the priesthood from becom- 
ing sincerely united with the Holy See, from which circum- 
stances had estranged them more, perhaps, than they be- 
lieved. There is no other means of re-establishing religion 
on its ancient bases. Its enemies, who are not ignorant 
of this, endeavour, on their side, to establish the contrary 
opinion, that it is the Pope who opposes the reunion of 
Christians. A Greek bishop declared, not long ago, that 
he no longer saw between the two churches any other wall of 
separation than the supremacy of the Pope* and this 
assertion, so simply made by its author, I have heard 
quoted in a Catholic country in order to establish the 
necessity of restraining still more the supreme spiritual 

a This prelate is M. Elias Meniate, Bishop of Zarissa. His 
book, entitled The Stone of Scandal, has been translated into Ger- 
man by M. Jacob Kemper. Vienna, 8vo. 1787. 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



357 



power. Pontiffs and Levites of France, be on your guard 
against the snare which is laid for you. In order to abo- 
lish Protestantism in all its forms, it is proposed to you to 
become Protestants. It is, on the contrary, by re-establishing 
the supremacy of the Pope, that you will replace the Galli- 
can Church on its true foundations, and that you will re- 
store to it its ancient splendour. Resume your place ; the uni- 
versal Church has need of you to aid in celebrating worthily 
that glorious epoch which posterity will never contemplate 
without the deepest admiration, — that epoch when the So- 
vereign Pontiff was borne back to his throne by events, 
the causes of which are evidently beyond the narrow circle 
of human means. 

XII. No human institution has lasted eighteen hundred 
years. So wonderful a thing, calculated to arrest attention 
everywhere, is so more particularly in the midst of our 
changeful Europe. Repose is punishment to the European, 
and this character forms a striking contrast with Oriental 
immobility. He is essentially active and enterprising ; he 
must innovate, he must change everything that comes 
within his reach. Politics, especially, have never ceased 
to exercise the innovating genius of the daring sons of 
Japhet. In the restless mistrust which keeps them always 
on their guard against sovereignty, there is much pride no 
doubt, but there is also a just consciousness of their dignity. 
God alone knows in what proportion these two elements 
respectively exist. It is sufficient here to call attention to 
the character, which is incontestable, and to ask ourselves 
what hidden power has been able to maintain the Pontifical 
throne in the midst of so many ruins, and against all the 
laws of probability. Scarcely is Christianity established in 
the world, when relentless tyrants declare against it a fero- 
cious war. They bathe the new religion in the blood of its 
children. Heretics attack it in all its dogmas successively ; 
Arius outshines them all, spreading dismay in the world, 
and making it doubt whether it be Christian. Julian, with 
his power, his cunning, his science, and his philosopher 
accomplices, deals against Christianity blows which would 
have proved mortal to anything capable of destruction. 



358 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



Immediately after, the North pours its barbarian hordes on 
the Roman empire ; they come to avenge the martyrs, and 
it might be supposed that they come to extinguish the re- 
ligion for which those martyrs died ; but there is quite an 
opposite result. They themselves are tamed by this Divine 
worship, which takes the lead in their civilization, and, 
mingling with all their institutions, engenders the great 
European family and its monarchy, of which the world had 
not yet the remotest notion. The darkness of ignorance 
follows meanwhile the invasion of the barbarians ; but the 
torch of faith shines more brightly on this dark ground, 
and science even, concentrated in the Church, ceases not 
to produce men eminent for their time. The noble sim- 
plicity of those ages, illustrated by high characters, was of 
infinitely more value than the half-learning of their imme- 
diate successors. In the times of the latter, arose that fatal 
schism which reduced the Church to the necessity of seek- 
ing its visible head during forty years. This scourge of all 
who were contemporary with it is a treasure for us in his- 
tory. It serves to prove that the Chair of St. Peter can 
never be moved. What human establishment could resist 
such an ordeal, which, nevertheless, was nothing compared 
to that which the Church was yet destined to undergo ? 

XIII. Luther appears, Calvin immediately follows. In 
a fit of frenzy, without example in the annals of mankind, 
the direct consequence of which was an internecine war of 
thirty years, these two insignificant men, with sectarian 
pride, plebeian acrimony, and the fanaticism peculiar to 
taverns, a proclaimed the reformation of the Church, and did 
in effect reform it without understanding either what they 
said or what they did. When men without mission presume 
to undertake the reformation of the Church, they disfigure 

a In the taverns people vied with one another in relating 
amusing anecdotes about the avarice of the priests ; the keys, the power 
of the Popes, tic, were there also ridiculed. — Letter of Luther to 
the Pope, dated Trinity Sunday, 1518, quoted by Roscoe, History 
of Leo X., 8vo. torn. iii. Appendix, No. 149, p. 152. Luther's 
testimony as to the first pulpits of the Reformation may he relied 
upon. 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



359 



their own party, whilst they really reform only the trne 
Church, which is obliged to defend itself, and act with 
greater circumspection. This is exactly what took place ; 
for there is no other real reformation than the immense 
chapter of reformation which we read in the Council of 
Trent ; the pretended reformation having remained out of 
the Church, without regulation, without authority, and in 
a short time without faith also — such as we behold it to- 
day. But by what fearful convulsions has it not fallen to 
that state of nullity of which we are now the witnesses ? 
Who can call to mind without shuddering the fanaticism 
of the sixteenth century, and the terrible scenes it exhibited 
before the face of mankind ? With what rage, particularly, 
did it not wage war on the Holy See ? We still blush for 
human nature as we read in the writings of the time the 
sacrilegious insults uttered by those coarse innovators 
against the Roman hierarchy. No enemy of the Chris- 
tian faith was ever mistaken — all strike in vain, as they 
fight against God ; but all know where their blows should 
fall. It is in the highest degree remarkable, that, in pro- 
portion as time advances, attacks on the Catholic edifice 
become more formidable, so that, in saying always " there 
can be nothing worse/' we are always mistaken. After 
the dreadful tragedies of the sixteenth century, it must 
have been said, no doubt, that the tiara had undergone its 
greatest trial ; this trial, nevertheless, was only the prepa- 
ration of a greater. The sixteenth and the seventeenth 
centuries might be called the premises of the eighteenth, 
which in reality was only the conclusion of the two former. 
The human mind could not have risen, all of a sudden, to 
the degree of audaciousness we have witnessed. To declare 
war against heaven, Ossa had yet to be heaped on Pelion. 
The structure of philosophism could only be erected on the 
vast basis of the Reformation. 

XIV. Every attack on the Catholic religion, necessarily 
bearing on Christianity itself, those whom our age has 
called philosophers only laid hold of the arms with which 
Protestantism had provided them, and directed them 
against the Church ; — meanwhile laughing at their ally, 



360 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



which it was not worth while to attack, although, per- 
haps, it expected they would assail it. Let it be remem- 
bered how many infidel books were written in the course 
of the eighteenth century. They are all aimed against 
Rome, as if there were no real Christians beyond the 
Roman pale ; which, strictly speaking, is quite true. It 
can never be sufficiently repeated, there is nothing so in- 
fallible as the instinct of infidelity. If there be anything 
it hates, that excites its anger, and which it always at- 
tacks everywhere, and with fury, it is truth. In that 
infernal sitting of the National Convention (which will 
amaze posterity far more than it astonished our frivolous 
contemporaries), in which was celebrated, if it may be so 
expressed, the abnegation of Divine worship, did Robes- 
pierre, after his immortal speech, send for the books, 
the robes, and sacred vessels of the Protestant worship, 
in order to profane them ? Did he call to the bar, did 
he seek to lead astray, or to terrify any minister of that 
worship, in order to extort from him an oath of apostacy? 
Did he, at least, avail himself for the horrible scene of 
the wicked men of the Protestant world, as he made 
use of those of the Catholic order? He did not even 
think of such a thing. Nothing in this quarter ever em- 
barrassed or irritated him, or in the least excited his jea- 
lousy, — it being impossible that any enemy of Rome 
should be odious to another, however widely they may 
differ in other respects. By this principle is explained 
the affinity, otherwise inexplicable, of the Protestant with 
the Photian, Nestorian, and other churches that were 
separated at a more early period. Wherever they come 
in contact, they embrace and compliment one another 
with a degree of tenderness which is, at first view, sur- 
prising, as their fundamental dogmas are in direct oppo- 
sition ; but their secret is soon discovered. All the enemies 
of Rome are mutually friends ; and, as there cannot be 
faith, properly so called, out of the Catholic Church, that 
fit of feverish heat which accompanies the birth of every 
sect once gone by, they cease to quarrel about dogmas, 
to which they hold only in appearance, and which all 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



361 



men see escaping one after another, from the national 
symbol, in proportion as it pleases that capricious judge, 
private judgment, to cite them to his tribunal, in order 
to pronounce them null. 

XV. An English fanatic, in the beginning of last cen- 
tury, caused to be inscribed on the pediment of a temple 
that adorned his gardens, these two lines of Corneilie : 

Je rends graces aux dieux de n'etre plus Romain, 
Pour conserver encore quelque chose d'humain. 

(I give thanks to the Gods [what had he made of his scruples 
about idolatry ?] that I am no longer Roman, and so still retain 
some properties of humanity.) 

And we have heard a fool of the same period exclaim, 
in a book quite worthy of such an author : "Oh, Rome ! 
how I hate thee ! " a He spoke for all the enemies of 
Christianity, but especially for those of his own time ; 
for never was hatred of Rome more universal and more 
marked than in that age, when the great conspirators 
artfully succeeded in gaining the ear of orthodox sove- 
reignty, and instilled poisons it has dearly paid for. The 
persecution of the eighteenth century infinitely surpasses 
all the rest, because it has greatly added to them, and 
resembled only the ancient persecutions by the torrents 
of blood it shed as it ended. But how much more dan- 
gerous was it not in its commencement ! The holy ark 
was subjected in our days to two attacks, hitherto un- 
heard of : it experienced, at the same time, the blows of 
science and those of ridicule. Chronology, natural history, 
astronomy, physics — were all, so to speak, in insurrection 
against religion. A shameful coalition combined against 
her ; — talents, knowledge, all the powers of the human 
mind. Infidelity took possession of the theatre, and ex- 
hibited thereon pontiffs, priests, and holy inmates of the 

a Mercier, in the work entitled The Year 2240, which on one 
ground at least deserves to be read. It contains all that those un- 
fortunate men desired, and all that was really destined to happen ; 
they were mistaken only in taking a passing phase of evil for a 
permanent state, which was to disembarrass them for ever of 
their greatest enemy. 



362 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



cloister, in their distinctive costumes, and made them 
speak according to its views. Women, who are all-powerful 
for evil as well as for good, lent it their influence ; and 
whilst talent and passion combined to make the greatest 
imaginable effort in its favour, a power of a new order 
rose in arms against the ancient faith: this power was 
ridicule. An unique man, to whom hell had intrusted 
its powers, came forward on this new arena, and com- 
pletely met the wishes of impiety. Never had the weapon 
of sarcasm been handled in so formidable a manner, and 
never was it employed against truth with so much au<- 
dacity and success. Until his time, blasphemy, circum- 
scribed by disgust, destroyed only the blasphemer ; in the 
mouth of the most wicked of men, it became contagious 
as it became enchanting. Even at this day, the wise man 
who glances at the writings of this sacrilegious buffoon, 
often weeps because that he has laughed. A life of a 
century was given to him, in order that the Church 
might come victorious out of the three ordeals which no 
false institution can ever resist — the syllogism, the scaf- 
fold, and the epigram. 

XVI. The blows struck in desperation during the last 
years of last century against the Catholic priesthood and 
against the supreme chief of religion, had renewed the 
hopes of the enemies of the eternal chair. It is well 
known that the mania of predicting the downfall of the 
Pontifical power was a weakness of Protestantism as ancient 
as itself. Nothing could correct it : neither errors, nor 
the most enormous blunders, nor the highest degree of ridi- 
cule ; it invariably returned to the charge ; but never were 
its prophets more bold in foretelling the fall of the Holy 
See, than when they believed that this event had come 
to pass. 

The English doctors have figured by this species of deli- 
rium in books that are very useful, precisely because they 
are the disgrace of the human mind, and because they 
must necessarily lead such men to consider their ways, as 
a culpable ministry has not condemned to irremediable 
blindness. In beholding the Sovereign Pontiff persecuted, 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



363 



exiled, imprisoned, outraged, deprived of his states by a 
preponderating and almost supernatural power, before which 
the earth was silent, it was not difficult for those pro- 
phets to foretell that it was all over with the spiritual 
supremacy and the temporal sovereignty of the Pope. 
Enveloped in the profoundest darkness, and justly con- 
demned to the double chastisement of finding in the Scrip- 
tures what is not in them, and of not seeing what they 
most clearly contain, — they undertook to prove to us, by 
these same Scriptures, that that supremacy to which it 
had been divinely and literally foretold that it would last 
as long as the world, was on the point of disappearing 
for ever. They discovered the hour and the minute in 
the Apocalypse (for this book is fatal to Protestant doc- 
tors) ; and, without excepting even the great Newton, 
they can scarcely study it without losing their judgment. 
We have no other arms than sound argument to oppose 
to the grossest sophistry ; but God, when his wisdom sees 
fit, refutes it by miracles. Whilst the false prophets were 
speaking with the greatest assurance, and a multitude, 
like themselves, intoxicated with error, yet listened to them, 
an obvious interposition of Omnipotence, made manifest by 
the unaccountable agreement of the most discordant powers, 
bore back the Pontiff to the Vatican ; and his hand, which 
is never raised except to bless, already called down the 
mercy and the light of heaven on the authors of those 
senseless books. 

XVII. What, then, are our brethren so unfortunately 
separated, waiting for, in order to give us the hand of 
friendship, and accompany us to the Capitol ? And what 
do they mean by a miracle, if they will not acknowledge 
the greatest, the most manifest, and the most incontest- 
able of all, in the preservation, and in our days above all, 
the resurrection (if I may use the word) of the Pontifical 
throne, brought about in opposition to all the laws of 
human probability? During several centuries, it may have 
been believed in the world that political unity was favour- 
able to religious unity ; but for a long time the contrary 
supposition has prevailed. Of the fragments of the Roman 



364 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



empire have been formed a multitude of empires, all differ- 
ing from one another in manners, language, and prejudices. 
The discovery of new lands has incalculably multiplied this 
variety of peoples — all independent in regard to each other. 
What other than a Divine hand could retain them under 
the same spiritual sceptre ? This, meanwhile, is a reality 
of which we are all witnesses. The Catholic edifice, com- 
posed of parts politically discordant, and even hostile, 
attacked, moreover, by the most wicked, the most inge- 
nious, and most formidable inventions that human power, 
aided by time, was capable of having recourse to, at the 
very moment it appeared to have fallen into irretrievable 
ruin, is re-established on its ancient bases more firmly than 
ever, and the Sovereign Pontiff of Christians delivered from 
the most relentless persecution, consoled by new friends, by 
illustrious conversions, by the most cheering hopes, raises 
his august head in the midst of astonished Europe. His 
virtues, no doubt, were worthy of this triumph ; but at 
present let us consider only the chair. Thousands of times 
have its enemies reproached us with the weaknesses, the 
vices even, of those by whom it has been occupied. They 
did not reflect that every sovereignty must be viewed as a 
single individual, having possessed all the good and all the 
bad qualities that belonged to the entire dynasty, and that 
the succession of Popes, thus considered in regard to its 
general merit, surpasses all others without difficulty and 
beyond comparison. It escaped them, moreover, that 
whilst they insisted most complacently on certain blots, 
they argued powerfully in favour of the indefectibility of 
the Church. For if, for instance, it had pleased God to 
confide its government to a being of a superior order, we 
should admire such a state of things much less than what 
we actually behold ; and in fact no well-informed man 
doubts that there are in the world other intelligent beings 
than man, and that are far superior to man. Thus, the 
existence of a head of the Church of a higher nature than 
man, would teach us nothing on this point. And if, more- 
over, God had rendered this being visible to creatures such 
as we are, by uniting it to a body, this wonder would by no 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



365 



means surpass that which we behold in the union of our 
soul and our body, — the most common, indeed, of all facts, 
but not the less an enigma that can never be solved. 
Now it is clear, that, in the supposition of such a superior 
being, there would be nothing extraordinary in the preser- 
vation of the Church. The miracle we behold, therefore, 
infinitely excels that which I have supposed. God pro- 
mised to found, on a succession of men like ourselves, an 
eternal and indefectible Church. He did so, as he said he 
would ; and this wonderful thing, which is becoming every 
day more dazzling, is already incontestable for us, who are 
placed more than eighteen centuries from the time of the 
promise. Never did the moral character of the Popes in- 
fluence faith. Liberius and Honorius, both eminent for 
piety, require an apology in regard to dogma ; the bulla- 
rium of Alexander VI. is irreproachable. Once more, why 
do we delay to acknowledge this miracle, and all attach 
ourselves to the centre of unity, apart from which there is 
no Christianity ? Experience has convinced the nations 
that are separated ; there is no longer anything wanting to 
enable them to recognize the truth. But we are far more 
guilty than they ; we who, born and educated in holy unity, 
presume, nevertheless, to wound and sadden it by de- 
plorable systems : vain children, as we are, of pride, which 
would no more be pride if it knew how to obey. 

XVIII. " Oh, holy Roman Church ! " exclaimed of old 
the great Bishop of Meaux, in presence of men who heard 
without listening ; " Oh, holy Roman Church ! if I forget 
thee, may I forget myself ! — may my tongue wither and re- 
main immoveable ! " 

" Oh, holy Roman Church ! " exclaimed also Fenelon, 
in that memorable charge in which, by humbly subscribing 
the condemnation of his book, he entitled himself to the 
respect of every age ; " Oh, holy Roman Church ! if I for- 
get thee, may I forget myself ! — may my tongue wither 
and remain immoveable ! " 

The same words from the inspired writings occurred to 
these two men of superior genius, to express their faith 
and their submission to the great Church. To us, happily 



366 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



the children of the Church, mother of all other churches, 
it belongs to-day to repeat the language of these two cele- 
brated bishops, and to profess loudly a belief which the 
greatest misfortunes must have rendered still more dear 
to us. 

Who could fail to be delighted by the magnificent spec- 
tacle which, in our times, Divine Providence presents to 
mankind ? Who would not derive encouragement from 
what every true observer must perceive it promises for the 
future ? 

Oh ! holy Roman Church ! as long as the power of 
speech remains to me, I shall employ it in celebrating thee. 
I bid thee hail ! immortal parent of science and of sanc- 
tity I Salve, magna parens ! Thou didst extend light 
to the extremities of the earth, wherever the blindness of 
sovereignties did not check thy influence, and often in 
opposition to them. At thy approach, the sacrifices of 
human victims disappeared, together with barbarous or dis- 
graceful customs, fatal prejudices, and the night of igno- 
rance ; and, wherever thy envoys could not penetrate, 
there is something wanting to civilization. Great men 
belong to thee ! Magna virum ! Thy doctrines purify 
science of that venom of pride and independence which 
renders it always dangerous and often fatal. The Sove- 
reign Pontiffs will, ere long, be proclaimed the supreme 
agents of civilization, the creators of European monarchy 
and unity, the preservers of the arts and sciences, the 
founders, the natural protectors of civil liberty, the de- 
stroyers of slavery, the enemies of despotism, the indefa- 
tigable sustainers of sovereignty, the benefactors of man- 
kind. If, sometimes, they have shown themselves to be 
men, — Si quid illis humanitus acclderit, it was only 
during the shortest imaginable period : a vessel cleaving 
the waters leaves fewer traces of her passage, and no throne 
in the world was ever adorned with more wisdom, more 
science, and more virtue. In the midst of all conceivable 
overthrows, God has constantly watched over thee, eter- 
nal city ! Everything calculated to destroy thee, was 
combined against thee, and thou art still erect ; and as 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



367 



thou wert of old, the centre of error, thou hast been for 
eighteen hundred years the centre of truth. The power of 
the Roman empire had made thee the citadel of paganism, 
which appeared to be invincible in the capital of the known 
world. All the errors in the universe converged towards 
thee ; and the first of thy emperors, gathering them to one 
point, consecrated them all in the Pantheon. The temple 
of all the gods arose within thy walls ; and, alone of all 
thy monuments, it still subsists entire. All the power of 
the Christian emperors, all the zeal, all the enthusiasm — 
and, if we will — even all the resentment of Christians, fell 
upon the pagan temples. 

Theodosius, having given the signal, all these magnificent 
edifices disappeared. In vain did the most sublime beauties 
of architecture seem to crave mercy in behalf of those won- 
derful constructions ; in vain did their solidity weary the 
arms of the destroyers. In order to level the temples of 
Apamea and Alexandria, it was necessary to have recourse 
to the means which war employs in sieges. But nothing 
could resist the general proscription. The Pantheon alone 
was preserved. A great enemy of the Christian faith, in 
relating these facts, declares that he knows not by what con- 
currence of fa vourable circumstances the Pantheon was pre- 
served, until the moment when, in the first years of the 
seventh century, a Sovereign Pontiff consecrated it to all 
the SAiNTS. a Ah! doubtless, he knew it not; but how 
could we be ignorant of it ? The capital of paganism 
was destined to become the capital of Christianity, and 
it was fitting that the temple which in this capital con- 
centrated all the powers of idolatry, should unite within 
its walls all the lights of faith. All the saints in the 
place of all the gods ! What a subject for profound 
philosophical and religious meditation ! In the Pantheon 
is paganism rectified and restored to the primitive system 
of which it was obviously a corruption. The name of God, 
no doubt, is exclusive and incommunicable. Nevertheless, 

8 Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall, &c. torn. vii. eh. 
xxviii. note 34, 8vo. p. 368. 



368 



THE POPE. 



[BOOK IV. 



there are several Gods in heaven and on the earth. a There 
are intellectual beings, better natures, divinized men. The 
Gods of Christianity are the Saints. Around God are 
assembled all the Gods, in order to serve him in the 
place and order assigned them. 

admirable spectacle, worthy of Him who has prepared 
it for us, and designed only for those who are capable of 
contemplating it ! 

Peter with his keys, that express so much, eclipses 
those of the ancient Janus. 5 He is everywhere the first, 
and all the saints only enter in his train. The god of 
iniquity, Plutus, c gives place to the greatest of thau- 
maturgi, the humble Francis, whose extraordinary in- 
fluence created voluntary poverty, in order to counter- 
poise the crimes of riches. The miraculous Xavier far 
outshines the fabulous conqueror of the Indies. In order 
to gain millions of disciples, he called not to his aid intoxi- 
cation and licentiousness ; he surrounded himself not with 
impure Bacchantes. He only displayed a cross ; he only 
preached virtue, penance, the martyrdom of the senses. 
John of God, John de Matha, Vincent de Paul 
(may every tongue, may every generation, bless their me- 
mory !) receive the incense that ascended of old in honour 
of the homicide Mars and the vindictive Juno. The im- 
maculate Virgin, the most excellent of all creatures in the 
order of grace and of sanctity, d distinguished above all the 
saints, as is the sun above all the heavenly bodies ; e the first 
of human beings that pronounced the word salvation / she 
who in this world experienced the felicity of angels, and 
the joys of Heaven in the path that leads to the grave ; s 

a St. Paul to the Corinthians, 1, viii. 5, 6 ; Thess. 2, ii. 4. 
b Prsesideo foribus coelestis janitor aulse, 
Et clavem ostendens, haec, ait, arma gero. 

Ovid. Fast. i. 125, 139, 254. 
c Mammona iniquitatis. — Luc. xvi. 9. 
d Gratia plena, Dominus tecum. — Luc. i. 28. 
e St. Francis of Sales, Traite de 1' Amour de Dieu, iii. 8. 
f The same, Letters, book vii. ep. xvii. Et exultavit spiritus 
mens in Deo saltjtari meo. 
s Klopstock's Messias, xii. 



CHAP. XI.] 



CONCLUSION. 



369 



she whose soul the Eternal blessed in imparting to it Ms 
own Divine spirit, and in giving to her a son who is the 
wonder of the universe;* she to whom it was vouchsafed to 
give birth to her creator ; b she who beholds only God above 
her, and whom all generations shall proclaim blessed ; d 
the Divine Mart ascends the altar of Pandemick Venus. 
And lo ! Cheist himself enters the Pantheon, followed by 
his evangelists, his apostles, his doctors, his martyrs, and 
confessors, even as a triumphant king, followed by the 
great men of his empire, enters the capital of his con- 
quered and fallen enemy. At the approach of the Man- 
God, all these human deities disappear. By his presence, 
he sanctifies the Pantheon and fills it with his majesty. 
The work is accomplished ; all the virtues have taken the 
place of all the vices. Error, with its hundred heads, has 
fled before indivisible truth. God reigns in the Pantheon, 
as he reigns in Heaven, in the midst of all the saints. 

Fifteen centuries had rolled over the Holy City when 
the genius of Christianity, ever victorious over Paganism, 
boldly raised the Pantheon in the air, e to make it only the 
crown of its famous temple, the centre of Catholic unity, 
the masterpiece of human art, and the most beautiful ter- 
restrial abode of Him who has condescended to dwell with 

US, FULL OE LOVE AND TRUTH. f 

a Alcoran, chap. xxi. 91, Of the Prophets. 
b Dante's Paradiso, xxxiii. 4, seq. Klopstock, ibid. xi. 36. 
c Cunctis ccelitibus celsior una, 
Solo facta minor Virgo Tonanti. 

Hymn of the Church of Paris, Assumption. 
d Ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes. — 
Luc. i. 48. 

e Allusion to the celebrated words of Michael Angelo, 1 shall 
place it in the air. 

1 Et habitavit in nobis . . . plenum gratiee et veritatis. — John 
i. 14. 



THE END 




2 B 



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PROSPECTUS OF A NEW EDITION 

Revised and much Enlarged, of the 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

FROM 

THE FIRST INVASION OF THE ROMANS, TO THE REIGN OF 
WILLIAM AND MARY, IN THE YEAR 1690. 

BY THE REV. DR. LINGARD. 

This Edition is handsomely printed in ten large octavo 
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PROSPECTUS. 

It is now thirty years since the first edition of 
Dr. Lingard's History of England issued from the 
press, and during that time it has heen steadily 
advancing in popularity. The name of the reverend 
and learned author stands among the foremost of living 
jhistorians. He has had many rivals in the field ; but 
'few have been found to equal him in the essential 
requisites of an historian, — scrupulous fidelity to truth, 
and an unbiassed judgment in detailing the eventful 
annals of England's chequered career. 

Few readers are aware of the immense amount of 
toil incurred by Dr. Lingard in the elaboration of this 
work. The mere reading alone, extending as it did to 
many thousands of crabbed, faded, and time-worn 
manuscripts, with the anxious search, prolonged for 
years among the precious archives of the Vatican, and 
the multitudinous State papers of England, and of 
France and Spain, must have required no ordinary 
share of labour. But this was not all. There was the 
balancing of probabilities, the sifting of doubtful 
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unravelling the perplexities of previous historians, 
whose indolence, whose prepossessions, whose lack of 
will or information, induced them either to pass lightly 
over important events, or to portray them in the 
deceitful colouring of party. To destroy this mass of 



and nothing but the fact, on the firm basis of truth. 
The majestic structure has been inlaid with stone 
greater beauty and greater richness ; but so ski 
is the joining, that it defies the nicest scrutiny to 
where the original ceases, and where the new mate l 
has been supplied. 

The present edition possesses, therefore, a gi 
superiority over all preceding ones. In it are game . 
the ripened fruits of a long life of literary toil, i 
every possible emendation that years of anxious resea 
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Among the fresh matter introduced, we would j u 
ticularly call the readers attention to the origin . 
the crusades, the controversy respecting the Bayi 
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divorce of Henry VIII., and the death-bed of t 
monarch. About one-third of the reign of Elizab 
is re-written ; and several facts of great and touch 
interest have been added, relating to the ; unfortuc 
Mary, Queen of Scots. The revival of Catholicity ■ 
England, after its almost entire extinction by 
Reformation, claims a large share of the author's 
newed investigation ; and the Catholic of the pros 
day will trace with interest the struggles of his anc 
tors under the crushing influence of the penal la : 
and will glean many a new and important fact in 
reigns of the Stuarts. Dr. Lingard has again r 
ticularly devoted himself to this inquiry, so interest 
to Catholics, and has had many valuable sources 
information thrown open to him. The charactei 
Cromwell is still further unveiled, and a search 
investigation with regard to the massacre of Drogh 
is appended to the annals of the Protectorate. Fin a 
in the reign of James the Second, Dr. Lingard will 
found to have established several facts which go fai 
disprove certain hasty and defamatory statements m; 
by Mr. Macaulay in his recent history of that perio 
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